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Aaron Josef B. Viloria

Prof. Paolo Manalo
English 12 (X4)
22 May 2014


The Little Prince and Private Language Argument:
Explaining the sheep in the box

Thesis Statement: The sheep in the box in The Little Prince is an example of Ludwig
Wittgenstein's idea that language can only be perceived in shared meanings between
two speakers.

When the Aviator first met the Little Prince, he asked him to draw him a sheep.
He drew and drew but the Little Prince was not satisfied. At the verge of losing his
patience, the Aviator drew a box instead and told the Little Prince that within it is the
sheep he wanted.
The question then that needs to be asked is: does the box really contain a sheep
within? And if it doesnt, what does the Aviator and the Little Prince refer to?
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Thoughts, ideas, expressions, and meanings are language dependent. In John
Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he discusses language as a
common tie of society (7). Language can be perceived by multiple speakers because of
the shared quality of it. The words we use depend greatly on common ideas that
speakers share. Language, then, determines the way which we experience reality and it
mediates our cultural perceptions (Ardener, 104).
Wittgenstein proposed in his book Philosophical Investigations (1958) that a
private language is conceivable only by its speaker because he alone has access to the
vocabulary used to define such language. He immediately refuted his proposal that
private languages exist. For Wittgenstein and many other philosophers, language is
social. For him, language was put through various interpretations depending on the
concept. He calls this a language game where words can be interpreted in variety of
ways depending on the rules of the game. This echoes greatly his idea that the limits
of our reality, and epistemology, greatly depends on attached meanings on words we
use.
But why is this design of Wittgenstein relevant to our reading of the sheep in the
box? The sheep in the box represents the idea that language is shared. If we apply it in
our understanding of the sheep in the box, one might argue that the Aviator and the
Little Prince shared the same language references, symbols, metaphors in order to
arrive at an understanding that there is, indeed, a sheep in the box. This is a fascinating
notion. How can two entities from different planets (or asteroids) understand the same
reference if they did not share the same language in the first place?
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Antoine de Saint-Exuperys story did not fail to remind us of the Little Princes
unabashed innocence. As a child, he is receptive to the meanings and symbols the
world around him presents. He is able to absorb them without bias because he hasnt
come to play the language game the Aviator has been playing. That is why it is easy for
the Little Prince to believe the Aviator when he said that there is a sheep in the box. He
sees the box as the Aviator tells him to see it.
As speakers we require openness to the world to acquire knowledge. However,
despite this need to receptiveness we must also possess a sort of active agency that
would enable us to observe and process phenomena. This is very apparent in the
sheep in a box conversation of the Aviator and the Little Prince. The Little Prince
exhibited openness to language and by doing so acquired a learning of the rule of the
language game the Aviator possessed.
The Little Princes worldview is simplistic, innocent, and direct. For him words are
referential, that is a word stands for something. There are many instances in the book
that shows this. First, in his encounter with the flower on Earth that confused the Little
Prince. For him, all flowers are roses and all roses are the same rose he has in his
home. Another is when he met the fox and the fox had to explain to him what tame
means. Although their meaning for the word tame is vastly different from the normal
usage of the word, this still exhibited the referential world view of the Little Prince. There
is no one to tame in his planet in the same way that the fox can be tamed.
What does it say then, about the Aviator if the Little Prince views the world in
terms of reference and referent? Unlike the Little Prince, the Aviator has a more
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complex understanding of language. That is not to say that he has a more meaningful
understanding of the world. As an adult, he is used to the language of symbols. He
understands the word in terms of its calculability in symbols. Put simply, his language is
that of the grown-ups. He understands the meaning of something without actually
having to encounter them. If not, how else would an adult comprehend the notion of
infinity? Or of death?
Both of our characters do not play by the same set of language rules. And yet,
they still understood each other. Here is where Wittgenstein notion of sharedness
come in play. For the Aviator, the drawing of the sheep in the box is symbolic. This is
only his box. The sheep you asked for is inside. (Saint-Exupery 10) There is no sheep
he refers to in reality. For him the sheep only exists inside that sheet of paper he gave
to the Little Prince. For the Little Prince, the sheep in the box really does exist. That is
exactly the way I wanted it! (Saint-Exupery 10) The sheep exists for him in reality and
not just as a drawing, not just as a creature inside the drawing of the box.
Meaning is shared. If two speakers speak of the same meaning they can still
understand each other. Whether one refers to a sheep in reality and one to a sheep
symbolically, they still share the same meaning of sheep. We have different ways of
construing the world but this does not mean that there is no overlap.
What makes the sheep in the box such a beautiful symbolism in the book is that
it represents this overlap. It is shared by two creatures that have no immediate
connection whatsoever. The Aviator might have just drawn the sheep in the box to get
the Little Prince off his case but it does not diminish the fact that he understood, even
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without prior knowledge of the Little Prince, that a drawing of a sheep in a box can be a
real sheep. This resonates to the idea put forth in the book that what is essential cannot
be perceived by the mind.
The sheep in the box may or may not exist. In the end, it doesnt really matter.
There is something in the drawing that refers to a sheep. Perhaps it is because it is
called a sheep in a box, and by naming so we can visualize what it is. We know what
sheep look like, we know how boxes are. Our own play in the language game enables
us to understand us what it is, but what it means escapes us.
The Little Prince and the Aviator are the only two people who know what the
sheep in the box is. They are the only ones who shared that conversation, who met in
the desert in the most peculiar way. Their experiences enable them to configure a
meaning of the sheep in the box that is unique to them and only them.
The sheep in the box is an example that whatever is going on inside (the
drawing) is not necessarily is what is reflected on the outside (reality), and vice versa.
But we understand it, not in the same way that the Aviator and the Little Prince
understand it (the meaning is theirs alone) but we can perceive it. Our perception
enables us to project whatever symbol, meaning, or reference to the sheep in the box.
Innocence? Faith? Redemption?
In a way, the author and the reader are like the Aviator and the Little Prince.
They may not have actually met, but they share an experience unique to them that
helps them define meaning. So, was Wittgenstein correct in his assumption that private
languages do not exist? I am in no position to refute a great thinker, but I can argue
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against his ideas. It is true, language is shared and is bound by rules and that strictly
speaking, no private language exists. There is, however, a gap in language that the
public can only gleam; a mirrored wall that only a few can ever hope to pass through.
There are moments that only a few in this case two speakers share, and in those
moments, they create their own meaning. Maybe the Aviator and the Little Princes time
in desert made it possible for them to comprehend the meaning of the sheep in the box.
Only them truly knows the meaning of the sheep in the box. We cannot grasp it because
we are not them. Perhaps that is why, in a single explanation, the Little Prince
understood, without hesitation or thinking, that the drawing is indeed a sheep in the box.
But what about us who are not the Aviator or the Little Prince? What is the sheep
in the box for us?
It is what is. A sheep in the box.

Bibliography:
Ardener, Edwin. Social Anthropology, Language, and Reality. Semantic
Anthropology. Ed. D. Parkin. London: Academic Press, Inc., 1982. Print.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Works, Vol. 1. London:
Taylor, 1722. Print.
Saint-Exupery, Antoine. The Little Prince. Great Britain: Egmont, 2009. Print.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. USA: The Macmillan Company,
1958. Print.