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Written and illustrated by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Little Prince
About the Author
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Born in Lyon, France on June 29, 1900
• Fond of writing and Flying
• Became a Pilot in 1926
• Wrote The Little Prince in New York City in 1940
• Died during one flying mission on July 31, 1944 1900 ~ 1944
Audio Clip – in NYC
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• When he failed an entrance exam for the Naval Academy, he had interest in aviation.
• He joined the French Army Air Force in 1921 where he first learned to fly a plane.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry • He left military in order to begin flying air
mail between remote settlements in the Sahara Desert.
• For Saint-Exupery, it was a grand adventure. • With his open cockpit biplane, he had to fight
the swirling sandstorms. Soaring across the Sahara inspired him to spend his nights writing about his love for flying.
Consuelo Gomez Carillo
- Antoine married Consuelo in 1933.
- She can be seen in the vain, demanding character of the rose in Le Petit Prince.
- Their marriage was stormy, for she felt neglected by Antoine.
- They lived apart for several periods of time, in addition to those occasioned by the war.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry • When World War II broke
out, he rejoined the French Air Force.
• After Nazi troops overtook France in 1940, he fled to the US.
• He had hoped to join US war effort as a fighter pilot, but was dismissed because of his age.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• He finally got his wish and returned to North Africa to fly a warplane for his country.
• On July 31, 1944, he took off on a mission.
• Sadly, he was never heard from again.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry • 1923 – Gets in a airplane crash while in Le Bourget.
Ends up leaving the military.• 1935 – He gets into another airplane crash trying to
break the speed record by flying from France to Saigon. He crash lands in
the Sahara Desert, him and his co-pilot end up walking fours days dehydrated until they are rescued.
• 1938 –Saint-Exupery experiences yet another plane crash as he is flying from New York City to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• 1944 – While on a reconnaissance mission, Saint-Exupery goes missing on July 31st.
• It is assumed that he is dead.
Audio Clip – in the Cockpit
At the time The At the time The Little Prince was written, WWII was raging in Europe and France had fallen to the Nazis. The 1940 Armistice between both countries essentially allowed the Nazis to occupy France. In the wake of this, Saint – Exupéry fled to the United States with the hope of convincing it’s government to enter the war against the Nazis. The innocents of the Little Prince is in stark contrast to what the Nazis represented. And like the Little Prince who longs to go home, it can be surmised that so too did Saint – Exupéry . He stayed in the United State for 27 months , having left will the support of the United States military to join the Free French Air force. Little Prince was written, WWII was raging in Europe and France had fallen to the Nazis. The 1940 Armistice between both countries essentially allowed the Nazis to occupy France. In the wake of this, Saint – Exupéry fled to the United States with the hope of convincing it’s government to enter the war against the Nazis. The innocents of the Little Prince is in stark contrast to what the Nazis represented. And like the Little Prince who longs to go home, it can be surmised that so too did Saint – Exupéry . He stayed in the United State for 27 months , having left will the support of the United States military to join the Free French Air force.
Historical / Social Context
Top left picture:Antoine de Saint –
Exupery while in the French Air Force.
Bottom left picture: soldiers during WWII occupying France in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
Right picture: Hitler standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in France.
Parallels of Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince
The narrator/pilot crash lands in the Sahara Desert.
The Little Prince encounters a fox while on Earth.
“ He feel gently, the way a tree falls” (Saint-Exupéry, 1943,
p.81). This is how the Little Prince is described after he is bitten by the snake.
Saint- Exupéry's was a life long aviator whose first crash in 1935, was in the Sarah Desert. Due to dehydration, Saint – Exupéry experienced hallucinations while in the Sahara Desert, one being of a desert fox.
Saint-Exupéry lost his brother, Francois, to a fever after caring for him. Years later when describing the death of his brother, he stated that his brother “...remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a [young] tree falls” (Saint-Exupery, Wikipedia).
Saint- Exupéry travelled to various places on account of him being a pilot. After 27 months of being in the United States, it has been suggested that he was eager to go back to his home of France.
The Little Prince Saint - Exupéry's Life
Parallels of Saint Exupéry and The Little Prince
The Little Prince has a difficult relationship with his rose; mistrusting her while at the same time loving her.
The Little Prince is described as having golden hair and being very inquisitive in nature.
It has been suggested that the Rose is a reference to Saint-Exupéry's, Consuelo. They had a tumultuous relationship, with both engaging in extra- marital affairs.
Saint – Exupéry briefly lived in Canada, with Charles De Koninick and meet his blonde haired inquisitive eight year old son at the time. He could have been the inspiration for the Little Prince.
The Little Prince Saint - Exupéry's Life
There are many more parallels that can be made between Saint-Exupery’s life and his lovable book. As Stacy Schiff stated about the relationship between Saint-Exupery and his beloved character, "...the two remain tangled together, twin innocents who fell from the sky.” But beyond Saint-Exupery, parallels have been drawn between the Little Prince and World War II. The baobabs to some researchers represent the Nazis and their ability to destroy. For me there is the idea of innocence lost in the transition from childhood to adulthood. This innocence lost can easily be equated to the lost of innocence war brings with it’s atrocities.
The Parallels of The Little Prince beyond Saint-Exupery
Picture on the left: Saint – Exupéry and Consuelo the year they got married.
Middle Picture: Saint-Exupery’s illustration for the book. The Little Prince tending to his rose
Picture on the right: Picture of Saint-Exupery and his plane after crash landing in the Sahara Desert.
About this Book
The three most popular books in the 20th century — the Holy Bible,
Muslim Koran, and The Little Prince
This book is dedicated to Leon Werth, the best friend of the author.
The Novella• First published in
English translation in 1943.
• The first French edition did not appear until 1946.
The Novella
• The author used simple words and diction.
• The language and style used were simple.
• Child-like
The Novella• Profound and idealistic
points about life and human nature.
• Saint Exupéry tells of meeting a young extraterrestrial prince in the middle of the Sahara.
• Their conversations reveal his own views about
the follies of mankind and the simple truths that
people seem to forget as they grow older.
The Novella The tone of The Little
Prince is often lonely, subdued and fragile-sounding; much like the little prince himself, when he ventures into the world of adults in an attempt to understand them even the narrator was also very lonely as a child.
- The Little Prince is a children’s tale meant for adults to read.
- Antoine not only wrote the book, he illustrated it also.
- It was published in 1943, just one year before his unfortunate death.
- The book has been translated into over 150 languages.
- It is usually the first book that beginners of the French language read.
The Narrator’s Drawings • The narrator’s illustration of his story emphasizes
Saint-Exupéry’s belief that words have limits and that many truths defy verbal explanation.
• The narrator places drawings into the text at certain points to explain his encounter in the desert,
and although his illustrations are simple, they are integral to understanding the novel.
• Saint-Exupéry defies the convention that stories should be only text and enriches his work by including pictures as well as words.
The Narrator’s Drawings • The drawings also allow the narrator to return to his
lost childhood perspectives. • He notes that he uses his Drawing Number One to test
adults he meets. • The drawing is actually of a boa constrictor
swallowing an elephant, but to most adults it looks like a hat.
• Whether or not a character recognizes the drawing as a hat indicates how closed-minded he is.
A-325
EARTH
A-B612
A-326A-327
A-328
A-329
A-330
SAHARA DESERT
A Flashback Plot
An interruption in the chronological sequence of a story by the narration of events which occurred earlier
Conflict
The conflict between the childlike perspectives of the prince and the beliefs of the adult world problem
Literary
Terms
Literary Terms
• Allegory – literary work with more than one level of meaning
• Symbol – an object with a deeper level of meaning
• Fable -- a short tale intended to teach a moral lesson
Literary Terms
• Connotation -- an idea or feeling that a word invokes in
addition to its literal or primary meaning
• Denotation -- the literal or primary meaning of a
word
Literary Terms
• Foreshadowing -- guessing ahead; a literary device by which an
author hints what is to come
• Irony -- a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to
what one expects
Literary Terms
• Metaphor -- a figure of speech that identifies something as being the
same as some unrelated thing for rhetorical effect, thus highlighting the similarities between the two
• Voice -- the form or a format through which narrators tell their stories;
writer’s style
Major Themes
• Individuality in the crowd. • Friendship and love. • Compassion for others. • Loss of innocence. • Loss/separation
Book Trailer
Quotations
• Explain the following quotations.
• What do you think they mean?
• How do they apply to your life?
All men have the stars,but they are not the same things for different people.
For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides.For others they are no more than little lights in the sky.
For others, who are scholars, they are problems.But all these stars are silent.
You, you alone will have the stars as no one else has them.”
- A quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince
“It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.If you succeed in judging yourself rightly,
then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”
- A quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince
“It is a lonely in the desert. It is also lonely among men.”
- A quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince
“No one is ever satisfied where he is.”
- A quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is
essential is invisible to the eye.”
Video Teaser
