For a book that's barely 86 pages, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" does more than just an adequate job of telling its story; it also teaches its readers more about life. With each instance, each memory, and each character its audience is introduced to comes a new life lesson told in beautiful simplicity. Thus, in honor of "The Little Prince" coming to Netflix, here are little pieces of wisdom from the characters of "The Little Prince."
Since there's too much content for just one article, I'm splitting it into two articles. This first part focusing on the characters from the comets, the second one focusing on the ones on Earth.
The King
The King, just like so many other characters in this book, lives on a comet all by himself. But he is a King and commands over all the stars and those who cross his path all the same. He knows that if he orders a general to become a seagull and the general does not obey then it's his, not the general's, fault that the order was not carried out because what he asked was the impossible. At the same time, though, his rulership is filled with contradictions. He rules over the stars, yet when the Little Prince asks for a sunset, he tells him that the time is not right and they must wait. Anyone who knows anything about how sunsets work knows that if you wait long enough, a sunset will still occur whether or not some king commanded it to. He also offers the Little Prince the title of Minister of Justice, but, as the Little Prince points out, the only people on the comet are him and the King. The King tells him to judge himself, but once again the Little Prince notices a few discrepancies: he doesn't need to be Minister of Justice to be able to judge himself and can judge himself anywhere also. So in the end, as the Little Prince is leaving, the King makes him his ambassador, which once again, doesn't make much of a difference because the Little Prince will be traveling around the universe anyways.
You can take what you want from this, that the King was an idiot, or that the more and more you look at that picture, the more and more it looks like Donald Trump, or maybe your response is the same as the Little Prince's and you just think "Les grandes personnes sont bien étranges" (Grown-ups are truly strange). With every time I read it though, the more and more I come to believe that power is only real because we just all believe that it is, so we act accordingly. Just think about it, everything that this all so "powerful" king has reigned over is really just a state of mind. He can't make a general turn into a seabird, he has to wait for the sun to set just like the rest of us, and he can give the Little Prince all the titles he wants, they'll still have no effect. The only reason why he's King in the first place is because he's the only one living there! Now obviously things are a lot more complex in the real world, but just keep this in mind, those who greed and lust overpower usually tend to miss out on life's bigger picture.
The Vain Man
The lesson learnt from the Vain Man is pretty straightforward: it doesn't matter how handsome or smart or interesting or amazing you are if all you can talk about is yourself then very few people are going to want to talk to you. No one is so great that they should just be admired by everyone, all the time, and the Vain man is just a cringe-worthy reminder of that.
The Drunkard
The Drunkard drinks to forget that he has shame. That shame? Drinking so much! The obvious lesson here is that drinking to forget isn't the best of ideas. The less obvious one? Don't let shame control your life. If there's something that you're ashamed of, then figure out why and how to fix it. Drinking in circles is only going to turn your shame into the shame of drinking, and then you'll really be stuck!
The Businessman
The Little Prince's encounter with the Businessman kind of resembles his encounter with the King, but this time, instead of focusing on power, the focus is on possession and riches. According to the Businessman, he owns 500,622,731 of those little bright things, which the Little Prince clarifies to be stars. What he does with those stars? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just owns them, and because he owns them, he is considered to be rich. What does he do with those riches? He buys more stars, which he owns because he thought of the idea of owning stars first. Stars, as many of us know, cannot be owned. Yes, people buy them and name them and stuff, but really, a star isn't something that can be touched. It's not something that just because you own it you can manipulate, or determine who can see it or who can't. As a matter of fact, there are so many of them in the sky, it'd be pretty damn hard to figure out which one was your own.
To think of things in terms of possession and riches can be pretty dangerous. For example, people buy land, which is essentially buying a piece of the earth. But here's the thing, the Earth is all ours to share. You can chase out the bugs, and animals, rip out plants and cut down trees, by right of your possession, but at the end of the road when you're dead and gone all that won't matter. Money is something that ceases to matter after death. We often make the mistake of saying someone's life was well lived because of how much stuff they have. How much land and fortune they have acquired and money they have left after they are gone, and it's a sad thing really. Quality of life is not measured in possession and riches, it's measured in love and moments and passion. Besides, what's the point in having all that money if you're just going to spend all your time trying to find new ways to earn and spend it? Life isn't being lived when it's only soul focus is money, and the more I look at that cranky old man crunched up at his desk counting his stars, the more I realise that he actually hasn't truly seen any of them.
The Streetlight Lighter
On this comet there is a streetlight, and as day turns to night and night turns today, its soul inhabitant lights and puts out the streetlight accordingly. Only problem is, on this planet, 30 minutes is worth 30 days, a whole month. That means that the only thing this guy ever does is light that damn streetlight over and over again, a torture that he subjugates himself too. All the poor guy wants to do is sleep, but days move by too fast to allow him to.
Two lessons can be learnt from this Streetlight Lighter. One, that even good things can come in a painful excess. The Little Prince loves sunsets, this comet has nothing but sunsets, but it's so many that if he lived there he would never get any sleep. Something that many of us sleep-deprived souls crave for and cherish very deeply. The second lesson is how easy it can be to get caught up in menial tasks and societal rules. I mean let's face it, lighting and putting out that street light is a menial task, but the Streetlight Lighter does it because traditionally, in society, we light the lamps when it's night and put them out when it's day. We also tend to leave sleep for night. But the Streetlight Lighter does not live on a planet where any of this is very practical, as a matter of fact it's a complete waste of time. Yet still, he does it, because he thinks that he has to function in the same way as everyone else. Really, though, because he's in special circumstances, he could just stop lighting that damn lamp, lay down, and go to sleep. Why doesn't he? Because society tends to frown upon those who move to their own rhythm, no matter what the circumstances.
*Ironically enough, the graphic above kept on shifting from its center position every time the article was autosaved, which happens every few seconds. I ended up spending several minutes trying to get it to stay centered, before I remembered what I was writing about and gave up.
The Geographer
The Geographer studies far off places, but has never taken the time to walk around and explore his own miniscule comet. The point is, you can read all the books you want, but if you're not getting out there and exploring the world around you then really, all that knowledge you're gaining is pretty much useless.
The Little Prince
Being the main character of this book, the Little Prince obviously the main source of most, if not all, of these lessons. Since he, like the previous six characters, lives on a comet all by himself though, I would like to take a moment to talk about how he treats that experience differently than all the others. The other six characters spend their time focusing on more the more wanting aspects of life, they want power, riches, knowledge, etc. They are plagued by shame, societal rules that shouldn't even apply to them since they are by their lonesome, exhaustion, and isolation. The Little Prince, however, does not have any real wants. He focuses on tending to his comet. He pulls out all the bad weeds and makes sure that the baobab trees don't over take his planet. He keeps his volcanoes from erupting, and he tends to his rose. If we were half as respectful to our planet as the Little Prince is to his comet, then we'd be living in a much cleaner, much less polluted place.
He loves his comet. He loves his rose. Unlike all the others, the Little Prince takes time to care for the comet he calls home, and also has someone he loves, and when that someone he loves gets sick, he gathers the strength to leave his comet in order to find a solution. While all the other lonely characters just sit there, moping around in their loneliness, the Little Prince gets the courage to stand up and leave, teaching us that searching for a solution is always better than waiting for one.
