A book review of The Little Pr
1. Introduction
The Little Prince, written by distinguished French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery (29 June 1900--31 July 1944) in 1942, was a famous fairy tale in the literature of children. The book was very popular around the world during the 20th century and was translated into over 150 languages since it has been published in New York. The book had been widely acknowledged that it is the best-selling book after the Bible and Das Kapital(Karl Marx,1867). The author expressed a philosophical story by plain languages, which is easy to read and understand. With plentiful symbolism, the book contains abundant philosophical thoughts, which not only reflects social life at that time, but also alert people at present.
2. Summary
Its narrator is a pilot who landed in a desert with his plane crashed. He met a boy, who turned out to be a prince from another planet. The prince told about his adventures on other planets and on earth and about his precious rose from his planet. He was disappointed to find his unique rose were everywhere on earth. Then a fox convinced prince to believe that his rose was worth cherished and he should see the world lightly with his heart. Through the mind of children, we can easily see how sophisticated, blind and stupid those adults are. It also tells us that we should be responsible for ourselves and be faithful to our love and friendship.
3. Analysis
3.1 The practical significance
3.1.1 Value your friendship and your love
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. It is the time you have wasted for your rose that make your rose so important. (The Little Prince, 1843) Friendship makes us become unique and important to our friends. Even all human beings in the world are physically resemblance, our love and our time wasted for our friends make them different in our eyes.
We should treat our friends with open arms because you have responsibility for them. We should make friends with others with our heart, only by this way can we gain true friendship. Even when we are at a distance, we know friends are always there waiting for us. Friends can offer us help, support and encouragement, which cannot purchase by money in the store. Some people forsake their friends in favor of money or power. They do not realize that those are temporary but friends are everlasting.
The principles are equally appropriate for love . At the very beginning, the little prince was too young to know how to love his rose. He did not guess all her affection that lay behind her pathetic schemes and left her brutally. But he ultimately known that her rose was more important than all the hundreds of other roses. His emotion was the honest, the most touching, the most real one. Nowadays, people invariably forget the meaning of love and lose the ability to love others. Men should regain the principle of love, which means we are supposed to be responsible for what you have tamed. Being responsible is not a burden ,but a happiness. Only when we take responsibility sincerely for our sweetheart, can we experience the blessedness of love.
3.1.2 Keep an unsophisticated mind a live a simple life.
When children draw a nonrepresentational picture, adults cannot understand it completely. They are always lack of imagination which makes them difficult to communicate with our children. Their mind is filled with business, profession, interpersonal relationship and anything realistic. Their innocence, which they had possessed as a child, has already faded away. Every day, they are busy coming and going, but they actually do not know what exactly do they want, because they cannot hear the voice of their inner heart. Gradually, adults become addicted to the blundering society and focus on the law of interests and feel the nothingness of life. They become spiritually poor. It is not their fault to lose their childishness, but their responsibility to be sensible to acclimatize themselves to the complicated society. They have to be sophisticated to communicate with others and to make a living so as to support their whole family. Ultimately, it is the society itself that robs the adults of their innocence.
The society is brutal, but it is not necessarily mean we can absolutely lose our heart. Just as Romain Rolland (1866-1944) once said, There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is, and to love it. (Vie de Michel-Ange, 1906). But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come. (Vie de Michel-Ange, 1906). We should face our defective life and keep a simple heart as our children. Even though we had already known the life itself is burdensome, we ought to keep our mind clean and pure.We should not regard showing childlike innocence as a blushing thing, or even a hypocritical thing. In fact, showing what we think is mature is actually quite strange in the eyes of children.
3.1.3 return childhood dreams to children
The adults persuaded the author to give up painting and study geography, history, arithmetic and grammar hard instead. There is countless childhood dreams are killed in the cradle by parents. Parents usually ignore the real interest of their little angel. They assume that every child should take exam-oriented education rather than art or music education. Especially under the great pressure of college entrance examination, parents believe that they should not let the children lose at the starting line. They deprive children of having fun and releasing their nature and push them to bury themselves in academic study, which is not appropriate to their development.
Children deserve a happy and carefree childhood. As parents, they should pay enough attention to the interest of their little angel and encourage them, and break the stereotype that every child should take exam-oriented education. Even though it is, children still have the opportunity to develop their own interest. Parents play a key role in the development of children. Every unreasonable constraint is a destruction to their little heart, and every experienced preaching would change their direction. In the long term, they will behave like adults who can echo others. It is a dreadful phenomenon that everyone do not want to see. As a result, parents ought to keep the innocence of their children and guide them to be mature instead of killing it in the cradle.
3.1.4 Break the racial stereotypes
When a Turkish astronomer presented his discovery of B-612 in Turkish costume, nobody believed what he said. But if he was in European costume, everyone accepted his report. We always judge people solely by their appearance. It is also a racial stereotype. In that era, Europe is the origin of civilization and the starting point of industrial revolution, so people spontaneously consider European as the smartest people in the world. Only European can discover and invent new things, and people in other countries definitely cannot do it. This kind of thought is certainly incorrect. All men are created equal. No one is superior than others. We should break the racial stereotypes and admit the intelligence and endeavor of those foreigners who live outside Europe. Thanks to the globalization process, people on earth become a immense family. All of us live in the global village. We ought to be kind to each other and love each other and make huge contribution together to the development of our earth.
3.2Six strange people in modern society
3.2.1 The prince visited the first planet that was inhabited by a lonely king, who liked to pretend that he can control everything in the world and everyone is his subject. The king represents the people around us whose desire to power is puffed. What they most concerned about was whether their authority had been respected. Behind pursuing power, they actually long for love and true relationship. The king seemed to order reasonably, but such reasonable order was ridiculous because it is merely natural phenomenon but not artificial command. The king lived in his own world and thought of the world as what he assumed the world should be.
3.2.2 The next was a conceited man. Although there is no more dwellers in the planet, he still want others to regard him as the handsomest, the best-dressed and the smartest man on this planet. What makes him more laughable is that it interests him so much. But From the angle of psychology, an arrogant person is exactly a person with low self-esteem. They disguised themselves to conceal some of the shortages they had, which they were ashamed of very much.
3.2.3 The third one was a tippler who was drinking so that he can forget that he was ashamed of drinking. It reflects on those who are dissatisfied with the reality but are unwilling to change it with action. They just escaped from reality by doing some foolish things repeatedly and deceived themselves.
3.2.4A businessman who lived in the forth planet were busying counting numbers. There are numerous busy man who eager to be wealthy nowadays, but they do not understand the significance of wealthy. It not only consists of money, but also love and quality. We should be rich both in material life and spiritual life. What we should value most is our family and friends around us.
3.2.5 Stubborn and exhausted, the lamplighter in the fifth planet do not know how to adjust themselves to life and was forced to make livelihood miserable. But he had consideration for others. He was busy for others, which made his life become meaningful and valuable.
3.2.6The sixth planet was a geographer. He represents the people who is an armchair strategist and never work by their effort. They seem to have a wide range of knowledge, but they actually hear of gossip and never substantiate it by practice. But practice is the sole criterion of the truth (Guangming Daily, 11 May, 1978). Consequently, they would not become authentically successful during their lifetime.
3.3The philosophical fox
The fox just like a philosopher. He taught little prince love and responsible. He please prince to tame him to make themselves unique to each other all over the world, so prince know the rose had already tame him. The fox used few words to illustrate the secret of love, which is to see the world with our heart. He told us that we should treasure the rose in our real life and be responsible for it.
3.4 the rose
Rose is the lover of little prince, a pride and beautiful princess. Her lie cause little prince to lead her. It symbolize young and beautiful girl and a romantic love, especially first love.What behind her little trick was a memorable affection.
3.5the snake
The snake was the most mysterious one in the book. It can help little prince return to his planet and live with his loved rose. He create riddles and solve them. It seems that he understand everything in the world, just like a wise man.
4 Conclusion
Although The Little Prince is a short fairy tale, it plays an irreplaceable role in the development of human nature. Through the experience of the little prince, the marvelous work makes comments on the different types of adults and puts forward some thought-proving question. The author also uncovers the essence of friendship and love, hoping that people can value the friendship and love they have. Additionally, learning from the childlike attitude of treating the world, we are supposed to keep an unsophisticated mind and live a simple life in this complicated society. If we go and keep our innocence we used to have, our life will become poetic and pleasurable. There are numerous philosophical knowledge contained in the book. On the whole, The Little Prince is a book worth reading for a lifetime.We would benefit from it greatly.
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