81 Years of The Little Prince

The author was from France, Lyon, where he was born and brought up within an aristocratic family. The book The Little Prince mirrors his own life experiences. We can identify this right from the beginning of the book– the crash, which allowed the narrator to meet the little prince. It was inspired by his own crash in the Libyan desert during an air race in 1935, when he also worked as a military and test pilot, along with similar occupations over the years. In this incident, he suffered from hallucinations due to severe dehydration, blurring the line between reality and illusion. However, something interesting I discovered was that the writing of this book also impacted his own life by helping him reflect on his messy marriage, which ultimately led him to reconcile with his love for his wife, Consuelo.

The story itself follows our narrator, who has an emergency landing in the Sahara Desert, where he meets a peculiar young boy, who we find out is the little prince, who tells him stories about his planet, the destructive baoboas, the delicate rose, or of his explorations of space, where he eventually found Earth. The unique idea, combined with the writing style, and well-written characters with deeper implications, make for an unforgettable 100-page read!

At first I thought this would just be a normal children's book with a sprinkle of fantasy, adventure, and classic vibes– but how wrong I was! The novel was much more than that, exploring topics of friendship and growing up. Two of the main lessons which really stood out to me were how relationships take time and effort to build, regardless of how close you seem at the start. We see this when, the little prince spends time with the fox, sittin underneath the tree, day after day, strengthening their bond. Secondly, it head-on challenges the loss of imagination and creativity of adults, almost brainwashing them to only think about how to add more digits in their bank accounts or focus on statistics and numbers, completely ignoring the small moments, which are the most important.

As I mentioned before, it heavily focuses on the theme of growing up, and a child’s imagination, on which it has many direct comparisons but also representations of concepts such as the rose representing love, patience, understanding, and his relationship with his wife, or the fox, which embodies relationships, bonds and acts as a kind of mentor to the little prince. I didn't even notice the symbolism until i finished the novel. However, a child reading the novel might not recognise these underlying meanings, as I did when I read it. Children may enjoy the beautiful illustrations and short adventure story, while older readers may recognise the deeper meanings that they might relate to on a more emotional level. This is one of the things that I think made it so timeless; it's catering to a very wide range of audiences, allowing each reader to have a different experience and interpretation. Not only this, but the whole concept of the novel, a story in a story, which gives it an unusual method of writing, adding to its charm.

Personally, my favorite part of the little prince was how each part of the book reveals something, and even though when I read it I thought it to be quite average, but after researching and seeing others' opinions on the novel i felt the core concept behind it. I realised that everything wasn't just spread on the surface for the reader, it required you to reflect and absorb the story to understand the concepts of love, friendships and growing up. I just think it's refreshing to see a piece of media or content which, instead of being shaped and moulded for the modern reader's ever-shortening attention span, requires the reader to adapt to the author rather than the author adapting to the reader, and I think that's what truly makes The Little Prince such a memorable and insightful read, so maybe give it a try!

Written by 

Tara Ramakrishnan 

@thetbrtalks: https://www.instagram.com/thetbrtalks/