“The Little Prince” is one of the most read stories in the world, it was written by Antoine de Saint Exupery in the year 1943. It is read, because it adresses very important issues such as love, friendship and the meaning of life in general. The main character of this story is “ Le Petit Prince”, a child an aviator, who had crashed with his plane, in the desert of Shahara. The Little Prince tells the pilot that he lives on an asteroid with a rose that he lovingly takes care of every day. He tells the aviator he moved away from his planet B612 to look for a sheep which can eat the baobab’ s plant, that is invading the little asteroid where he lives. Even though he only recently embarred on this journey, he misses a lot of his rose with wich lately he was no longer able to communicate. At this point the child talks about the many people he met during his journey: a lonely king who gave orders to his subjects, a drunk man who drinks to forget the shame he feels when he’ s drinking, a buisness man who spends his time counting stars and bilieving they are his property, a geographer who spends his days sitting at a desk and transcribing on a big book the informations which are told him by the explorers he meets, who describe him the characteristics of the planet where he lives that he has never explored. It is this last character who advise the little prince to explore planet earth. After coming to earth the child will meet a snake that will have a decisive role in history, a rose similar to his that will give him a profound disappointment, because he thought his was the only one in the world, and finally the fox who will be the most important meeting, as it will make him discover the value of friendship.
During the story of the little prince the pilot tries vain to repair his plane and, as the time goes by, the relationship between the two becomes deeper and deeper. At a certain point the little prince and the aviator will resume their journey separately, but theirs not be a fare well it was only a goodbye, because the pilot knows that he will be able to find the little prince by looking at the stars. The brevity of the story contrasts with its depth, especially for the topics covered that take shape trough the characters; vanity, friendship, vices greed, cunning.
We all in our life have embarked on an exploratory journey inside and outside ourselves meeting one or more of these characters who have contributed to our growth path. Everyone has discovered by becoming an adult even through deep suffering how “ the essentials is invisible to the eye”.
Testo e immagine di
Silvia Iervolino, III M
