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Ayushi Jain

Ashwin Rajeev

B.A. (Hons.) English [2018ENG1064]

World Literature

3 April, 2021

Grown-ups: Epitome of restricted perspective

The center investigation of current paper deals with the discussion “all grown-ups were

once children – although few of them remember it.” Saint Exupéry in The Little Prince advises

us explicitly how “grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for

children to be always and forever explaining things to them.” The storyteller starts with a

conversation on the idea of adults and their failure to perceive, particularly identifying with

important things. You can never converse with them about the things that truly matter. You need

to bring yourself down to their level and talk "about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties.”

And again, "Only the children know what they are looking for." Exupéry in this novella

absolutely modifies the supposition that its adults who understand everything. All things

considered, he presents, and all through his narrative exerts and frequently exhibits the failure of

grown-ups to neglect, misconstrue things that are truly important.

The story starts with the narrator who is a pilot, and, his plane crashes in the Sahara, a

long way from civilization. In the desert, the narrator comes across a young boy who is

nicknamed as "the little prince". Throughout the span of eight days abandoned in the desert,

while the narrator struggles to fix his plane, the little prince recounts the account of his life. The

prince starts by depicting life on his small home planet: basically, a house-sized asteroid known
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as "B-612" on Earth. The prince has since visited six different planets, every one of which was

occupied by a single, unreasonable, intolerant adult, each intended to evaluate a component of

society.

The first of them was inhabited by a king without any subjects who just issues orders that

can be followed, like instructing the sun to set at dusk. The moment he saw the little prince, he

addressed him too as his subject. Here, the narrator makes a wise comment: “He did not know

how…..men are subjects.” Little prince kept wondering over what does the king rule? The king

then answered, “Over everything” and urged him to stay and become the dispenser of justice, but

the little prince said that there was no one else to be judged. To this the king argued that, if so

was the case, he should judge himself, because it was the toughest of all tasks. Little Prince

wittingly replies to this, “but I can judge myself…..on this planet.” He politely takes his leave

from the king remarking at the end that, “The grown-ups are very strange” and continues his

journey to the next planet.

The occupant of next asteroid was a conceited man who just needs the applause which

comes from profound respect and being the most-commendable individual on his generally

uninhabited planet. On seeing the Little Prince coming from afar he exclaims, “Ah! Ah! I....a

visit from an admirer!” He admired the man for some time but soon grew bored and left by

wondering how anybody could be interested so much in being admired. But this, after all, was a

trait that is common in grown-ups, as he says, “The grown-ups are certainly very odd.”

The next asteroid was inhabited by a tippler. He interrogates the man his reason for

drinking and is puzzled on knowing his answer. The drunkard answers that he drinks so much

since he was embarrassed about drinking and needs to forget this humiliation. The little price

then leaves the planet remarking, “The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd.”
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The fourth planet belonged to a businessman who is blind to the beauty of the stars and

instead endlessly counts and catalogues them in order to "own" them all, “Certainly. When you

find a diamond…… thought of owning them.” The little prince showed him the futility of such

ownership by contrasting with his personal example of flower and volcano and asserting how

businessman was of no use to them. But on seeing the businessman paying no heed to him, the

little prince decides to leave exclaiming, “The grown-ups are certainly altogether extraordinary.”

The fifth asteroid was the smallest of all the other asteroids. It was inhabited by a

lamplighter. He would light the street lamp every single minute, and then blow it out alternately

to correspond with his planet's day and night. The little prince was not able to reach any

explanation of the use of a street lamp and a lamplighter, somewhere in the heavens, on a planet

which had no people, and not one house. The lamplighter tells him his reason for doing so,” In

the old days it was reasonable…… rest of the night for sleep.” Without his knowledge the little

prince spent one month in it but had to leave it with a heavy because it was too small to have

room for two persons. This minor character clearly shows the adult’s or older generation’s

adherence to old beliefs and their rigidity and resistance in changing them. He visits many more

planets and is advised by the geographer to visit the planet Earth.

The visit to Earth starts with a profoundly negative examination of humanity. The six

ridiculous individuals the prince experienced before contain, as per the narrator, pretty much the

whole grown-up world on earth.

Exupéry in the novel asserts, “Grown-ups love figures... only from these figures do they

think they have learned anything about him.” Another important instance by another important

character, Fox, concludes, “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all
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ready-made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so

men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me...” (The Little Prince, p.111)

The fundamental subject of the tale is communicated in the secret that the fox tells the

little prince: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the

eye.” The author features the significance of the reality in life that is covered up in a shell and

can only be found with heart and mind. The author thinks about that the noticeable things are just

the shell, and the fundamental qualities are covered up inside. He guarantees that adults never

comprehend this matter of outcome. In practically the entirety of the passages of the novel, the

author notice around several grown-ups who can't see truth in their life. All grown-ups of the

earth are to some degree like the king, the businessman, the geographer, the conceited man, the

tippler, the merchant, and the other grown-ups that he encounters in his life. The Little Prince

draws unflattering representations of adults as being pitifully narrow-minded and restricted

perspective. Conversely, youngsters come to insight through liberality and an eagerness to

investigate their general surroundings and inside themselves. Antoine (1943) said the narrator

places that adults can't make their own interpretations of the world.

The Little Prince illuminates and open the eyes about what the “Real World” resembles

to. As the narrator says to the little prince “Men occupy little space on Earth.” As indicated by

little prince's experiences, what can be surmised is that adults consider individuals to be

statistics, education as functional, food a fuel, garments as utilitarian, books as pointless

extravagance, and religion a profound quality. They resemble the accountant as narrator depicts,

going through our days working over our books, tallying everything up, guaranteeing

responsibility of all we can fit in the record, and neglecting to see that we live in an entire, wild

universe filled to the edge with stars some place amidst where one, interesting rose lives on a
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planet and calls out for love. The narrator believes that an adult is a crazy person. They seek after

something in their existence without understanding what the importance behind it is as deduced

from the encounters told by the little prince.

“All grown-ups were once children – although few of them remember it.” This isn't an

activity in nostalgia or the craving to withdraw to the past. Rather, it is accepting of all that has

gone into the making of a mature person. We should not fail to remember that we are somewhat

rare creatures comprised of a creative mind and memory and dearly-won ethics. The past is

essential for what our identity is. In the event that poets, as Shelley would have it, are the

legislators of humanity, we start to see that they practice their obligation to some extent by

moving us back into a reality where what is significant isn't only in what we see yet in what is

invisible. The Little Prince, like all excellent books, fills this job by helping us to remember who

we are and what precisely it is that makes us so exceptional.

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Works Cited

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine De. The Little Prince. New Delhi: LDS publication, 2020.

Yudhanto, Kunto Sinung, Nicolaus. “The meaning of grown-ups as seen by the narrator in the

Antoine De Saint- Exupéry’s The Little Prince.” (2017)

Setiawati, Wahyu. “The analysis of intrinsic elements in The Little Prince: A novel by Antoine

De Saint- Exupéry” (2016)

Potocarova, Maria. “The Educational and Moral Message in the Little Prince”