El Principito

READING INFORM OF “THE LITTLE PRINCE”

AUTHOR'S CONTEXT

Antoine de Saint Exupéry was born in Lyon, France, on June 29 of 1900. He passed his infancy at a town called Saint Maurice of Rémens. Later he deposited a school of priests in Sarthe and when he had a little more than eleven years, he felt attracted by aviation.

When he finished secondary school, he deposited Bossuet school with the project to stand at the naval academy. At a later time he moved to the apartment of architecture in Bellas Artes.

He did his military service in Strasbourg, where he was outstood in the second regiment of fighting aviation, and they sent him to Casablanca (French Morocco).

His first short novel was The Aviator (1925). He is hired by the company of aviation Latécore on 1926. He publishes his book Flight by night; for the one he earns the Femina Reward in 1930. He marries in Paris with the widow of the writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo from Guatemala, in 1931.

His act, Southern Mail, is taken to the big screen by Billion, in 1935. He publishes his book Sands, Summits and Stars at United States (Men’s Earth) in 1939 and he receives the reward of novel at French Academy.

Some time later he is promoted to captain and he passes a season in Argelia, from where he does not take long to go back to New York and to publish his book, War Pilot, which was forbidden in France by the German authorities.

Years later, in New York, they leave, Letter to a hostage and just after The Little Prince.

He comes out toward Grenoble district, Annecy, in July of 1944, and the odds are that his appliance had been destroyed by recognition airplanes Nazis, dying that way this poet and philosopher of our epoch.

ACT’S CONTEXT

The act comes true in the early Second World War. The author is a French captain radicated in New York, but that has had the experience of the war and the occupation of his country.

It is an epoch where several philosophical and sociological currents confuse the man; for that, in his book, the author reflexes the incongruence and lack of sense that many people's actions have in his epoch. It is a claim to adults' foolishness, directed like a book that intends to show to the children than life is not that way and than although the adults that surround them be incomprehensible, in the world there are many worthy things to admire, to love and to take in account.

SUMMARIZED CONTENT OF ACT

In the book, The Little Prince, the author tells a fantastic history that supposedly he had lived six years back. At history, the author is a pilot that has an accident in his airplane at the Sahara’s desert. There, next morning to the accident, he knows to the little prince, a little man than appeared all of a sudden, request him insistently to draw him a sheep. In front of such insistence, the pilot tries to draw him the sheep a couple of times, but the little prince refuses his drawings. Finally the pilot draws a box and say him the sheep is inside, getting this time that his drawing pleases to the little prince.

In the course of the days, while the pilot goes trying to repair his airplane, he goes knowing more details about the little prince:

The little prince came from a little planet, of the size of a house, called B 612 asteroid where he lived accompanied by a rose. There were three little volcanoes in his planet. There, the baobabs grew than every days he had to uproot to avoid that they destroy his tiny planet.

The little prince displeased with his rose that was astute, proud and manipulating, decided flee and began to visit the asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329 and 330, another tiny planets, in order to look for an occupation, in order to get an education and in order to find friends.

Each planet was inhabited for an alone older person, of whom, the little prince learned something new that made him think that older people were very weird.

The first planet was inhabited by a king. The king did not tolerate the disobedience, but his orders were reasonable. There, he learned than for somebody like a king, every person is his subordinate.

The second one was inhabited by a conceited man. There, he learned that a vain person believes that the other men are admiring and he only listens to the praises.

The third one was inhabited by a tippler. There, he understood that tipplers take refuge in drinking to escape of the realities that they do not want to accept.

The fourth planet was inhabited for a businessman. There he understood than somebody like him does not appraise the simple things of life under the pretext to be a serious and a busy person. Besides, he learned that people should own something, providing that they can be useful for that that they own.

The fifth one was inhabited by a lamplighter. He was the first that did not seem ridiculous to the little prince, because he was faithful to his responsibility and he was thinking of something else besides himself.

The sixth planet was inhabited by a geographer that did not know, not even his own planet excusing oneself in an explorer's lack, who had to be sincere and to present proofs. There, the little prince acknowledged nostalgically than in his absence, his flower would be able to be at risk.

The geographer recommended him to visit the Earth and so the little prince did it.

The little prince arrived to Africa and there he came across a snake that proposed to help him when he wants to return to his planet. Next he found a flower of three petals at the desert, which explained him that men do not remain fixed in a place, rather always they go from one place to another. Then, he understood, that besides the men do not have imagination and they repeat what they listen.

Next, he found a rose garden, feeling disappointed when he found out that his planet's rose was not the only one of the universe.

Next, he knew a fox of which he became friend and which taught him the value of friendship. He learned that the affective loops do that certain things and people be unique in the world and they can fill of sense and significance many another things. He learned with the fox, besides, that men do not have to know anything, therefore, they no longer have friends; that the word is source of misunderstandings; that rites do that things get to have an especial value; that only it is possible to see well with the heart; that the heart of the matter is invisible to the eyes and that a person is responsible forever of those things or people with those who has established affective loops. So, he understood what valuable his rose was, since for him she would be unique in the world.

At a later time, the little prince came across a railway switchman. He learned with him that the older people never are content where they are, that they do not look for anything or they do not know what they look for and that only the children know it.

Finally he found a merchant of pills to placate the thirst for a week. There, he learned that people are obsessed with saving time that they do not have defined in what use it.

At fifth day to have known the little prince, he expressed to pilot his worry for the possibility that his new sheep eat the rose that he had in his little planet, and the pilot promised to draw him a muzzle for his sheep.

At eighth day from the accident, the water supply had finished to the pilot and he decides to accept the invitation of the little prince to go through the desert looking for a water well.

During the journey through the desert, the pilot understood that what embellish to things is invisible.

Next morning, they found a well. The pilot understood that still the simplest things of life, like water, when they grow from a sentiment of affection or love, they can be food to the heart. There, the pilot drew the muzzle that he had promised to the little prince.

At following day, it would be the anniversary of little prince's fall to Earth. The pilot understood than the reason why he had found the little prince was because he went from turn toward his fall's point by the anniversary. The little prince remained in that place but he asked to pilot that continue repairing his airplane and that give back the afternoon of the day following. That way he did it, and when he returned, he found the little prince talking with a snake.

When the snake went away, the little prince talked to him about something that would happen that same night and for which he felt fear. The little prince explained him than from now on, it was going to seem him than all the stars smiled, because he would live and he would smile in any one of their. He requested to pilot that night not be next to him, because with the snake's biting he would seem as if he dies but it would not be truth. The pilot told him that he never would separate from him.

That night, the little prince went away silently, but the pilot was able to reach it. When they arrived to the place, the little prince said, like saying good-bye: “Well…that is all”, and after an instant, he stepped forward. The snake, as quick as a flash bit him in his ankle and the little prince fell softly on sand.

The pilot knew that the little prince went back to his planet, because next morning, he did not find his body.

There is a mystery than still six years after disquiets to pilot: he remember he forgot to give to little prince a leather strap for the muzzle; therefore, it's possible that the sheep had eaten his rose.

Finally, the author comes to an end saying that no older person will understand never why it is so important.

PERSONAL APPRECIATION

For me, The Little Prince is a very interesting act, since implicitly it proposes a new style of life. The author proposes be objective in our interpretation of reality although looking at the life with a little boy's eyes. He proposes rediscovering and to value the simple things, to look for a sense to the life, to question us until to find answers, be creative us and to allow to fly imagination. Besides he proposes rediscovering virtues like love, friendship, spirituality, fidelity, humility and responsibility. For this reason I consider than the book The Little Prince is a book that really is worthy to be read.