Reyes, Aquila Kate N.

11- ABM A
Book Review

“The Little Prince”

By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“The Little Prince” (Le Petit Prince), first published on 1943, was a novella of a grown-up
meeting his inner child which known as the little prince. It is written by a French aristocrat, writer, poet,
and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who was born in Lyons into an old family of provincial
nobility. The story is worldwide known with its quote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Exupéry wrote this story not to be an ordinary children’s book but rather he wrote this to
persuade and open the eyes of many adults nowadays. This story is about a pilot stranded in the Sahara
desert who eventually meet the little prince who’s travelling from planet to planet to meet a friend. The
pilot narrates while the little prince tells him about his adventures. The author used symbolism and very
colorful illustrations in writing this story. In every planet that the little prince went to, he met different
persons with different personalities representing the adults nowadays. And as he tell the story to the
aviator, the story suddenly becomes a satire. It suddenly criticized the vices of many adults. The book all
in all discusses a claim of values by showing the philosophy of life as seen by a child.

This book argues about the issue of grown-ups’ behavior especially with their vices. The author
exemplified each vices by representing it with the different kind of characters the little prince
encountered. Their personalities symbolizes the vices of the adulthood. Up until now, these characteristics
were still evident in us.

As the little prince travel from planet to planet, he met this kind of people wherein each
represents one personality of people nowadays. The king whom he first met symbolizes the government
or those people who were hungry for control and power. The second person he met was a conceited man
representing those who want nothing but admiration. The third one is the tippler who was ashamed of
himself that he drown himself by drinking alcohols. The fourth one is the businessman who symbolizes
those people who cares for nothing but money. The fifth one is the lamplighter who’s very hardworking
that he forgot to enjoy the things that he has. He is a person who thinks about others without thinking his
own. After the lamplighter, he met the geographer who studies the works of other persons without making
his own work. For me he represents those people who were dependent to other people.

These representations of persons were very true nowadays. I think the author wants to portray
these personalities to make us realize what we are now and how much we have changed from how we
really were. In my perception, the author wants to imply that we always look for something more and that
we don’t realize that these things didn’t really matter.

This book also presents the evidence of young love nowadays. Many youth nowadays experience
the thing that we called puppy love or young love. But due to lack of maturity, some young couples
separated their ways easily. Just like in this book wherein the little prince left the rose. He said that
flowers were inconsistent and that he was too young to know how to love her. For me the rose represents
the girls nowadays. No matter how much they tried, the little prince decided to left because they were too
young and didn’t know that much about anything yet.
Reyes, Aquila Kate N. 11- ABM A
Book Review

I remembered reading in this book about the rose of the little prince wherein the little prince
discovered that his rose was just like many hundreds or even thousands of others. But when you learned
to love one rose, for you that rose shall be unique in the world. He just realized this after leaving the rose
alone. It is very saddening because just like what’s happening this days, people just realize the worth of
something if they’re already gone.

In the first few chapters, the little prince explained the necessity for removing the baobab trees
growing on his planet. For the baobab trees represents the problems of people. The little prince said that
the baobab trees start out by being little before they grow so big. One must remove it immediately before
it gets worse. Just like our problems, we should not let it grow because when it gets worse, we may not be
able to solve it. That’s why while it is still little, we should not let it grow so big or make it even worse.

After reading this book, I realized that it has its dark side most especially on the last part when
the little prince let the snake bit him. For me this days, society let people take their own lives. The
expectations and the standard that takes up the whole society makes people killed by their own thoughts.
This is why I became fond of this book after reading it.

I also watched the movie of “The Little Prince”. It quite differs from the story in the book. It
focuses on how much we forget the way things were before and make us ask ourselves what happened to
our society. And just like how the story portrays, the society killed the imagination of many. Our society
now makes us think that whatever we do, we will always be not enough. Someone said that society is
funny. It asks us to be ourselves yet they still judge us. This serves as a wakeup call to each and every one
of us.

I remember the fox saying that men have no more time to understand anything. He said that they
buy things already made at the shops but there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship. For
me friendship matters more than any materialistic things. We can’t buy it but we can earn it. I
remembered a quote by Sonya Parker, she said that we should not forget what’s important in life. Material
things can be replaced, but important people can’t.

And as the book implies, people nowadays were very much not like the way before. People tend
to want money, power and control more than anything. People let those things enslaved them. Instead of
the love makes the world go round, it is now the money that’s makes the world go round. The Little
Prince teaches us that we should start caring about the intangible things than those materialistic things.

This book is very wonderful to read but honestly the book itself is very confusing. You need to
think critically and analyze the story completely to better understand it. The claims were exemplified by
using symbols that makes the story be beyond its meaning. The use of illustrations for me definitely
attracts the readers to further read the story. For me the methods the author used makes the story more
colorful and exciting to read. The representation of ideas were very relatable because the issue being
focused was very common today.

For me this book really catches my heart because it seeks to wake up us all on what is really
happening to our world especially on the side of adults. As a senior high school student, this would be a
message and a reminder for me and my fellow to be aware on what we’re going to be as an adult in the
future. The Little Prince will definitely open our minds about some issues regarding adulthood especially
Reyes, Aquila Kate N. 11- ABM A
Book Review

with their immorality. It will allow us to reflect and think on ways how can we avoid that. And Exupéry
taught me that the most beautiful things in our world were the things that cannot be seen by the eyes but
rather the things that can be felt by the heart.