Analysis of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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The Little Prince story analysis
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The Little Prince in brief

Story&Drama analyses Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (in french: Le petit prince): what makes this world-famous story so successful?

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has achieved two narrative feats in this little book: simply telling a story that is so beautiful and not so simple; and bringing to life highly engaging characters.

How did the writer manage to dramatize his scenes, build a poetic world, make us laugh and smile, create attachment and mystery, give rhythm, stimulate our intelligence, move our hearts, in short, write a children’s novel of exceptional quality, all in only a few thousand words?

These are some of the questions our analysis of The Little Prince seeks to answer.

The Little prince

  • Title : The Little Prince
  • Year of publication: 1943
  • Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  • Genre: children’s story
  • Chapters : 27
  • Number of plots: 25
  • Number of characters taking at least one actantial role : 17
  • Number of acting roles: 54
  • Characters with the most roles: the little prince alone has 27 actantial roles, i.e. half of the total. 23 times Hero, 2 times Antagonist, 2 times Helper of the Hero.

The author and the work

Born in 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote The Little Prince as a Christmas tale planned to be released for Christmas 1942.

The book was actually published in 1943 in New York in french and in english and in 1946 in in France. From its release to now, around 145 millions of copies were sold around the world, in translations in more than 270 languages. It makes the tale the second best-seller of the world after the Bible.

The author disappeared on board of his plane on the 31th of July 1944 in the sea close to Marseille, in a photographic mission preparing the reconquest of Provence by the Allied.

The story

A French aviator, who is the narrator, breaks down with his plane in the middle of the Sahara desert. He is busy repairing his engine when a little boy with curly blond hair approaches him and asks, “Please…draw me a sheep!” The aviator draws him several that don’t suit the child, so he finally draws him a box that contains the sheep of his dreams… He tells him about the boa constrictor that he used to draw as a child.

They get to know each other better and the Little Prince tells him his story. He tells him that he comes from a tiny planet, asteroid B 612, discovered by a Turkish astronomer, on which he lived by taking care of three volcanoes and a rose, with whom he is in love, and which he protected by clearing the baobab shoots that threatened to destroy him. Then one day, the little prince decided to go on a journey to discover the world and make friends.

During his journey, he visits a series of asteroids on which he meets a whole gallery of strange characters with behaviors all more absurd than the others: a tyrannical king, a vain man, a businessman who spends his time counting and who believes he owns the stars, a drunkard who drinks to forget that he drinks, a lamplighter who turns on and off lampposts day and night while he is alone on his planet, and a sedentary geographer who is content to write in a book about worlds that he does not visit himself

Finally the little prince arrives on Earth, which at first seems deserted, then where he meets a snake that speaks only in riddles, the echo of the mountains, 5000 roses, a switchman, a merchant, and then a fox that he tames, with whom he discovers friendship and who reveals to him that “true beauty is invisible to the eye”.

The aviator finally succeeds in repairing his plane, and the little prince decides that it is time for him to go home to take care of his rose – but in a terribly sad way, since he chooses to abandon his overweight body, to be bitten by the snake, and thus symbolically to die.

The Little prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

Analysis

Our analysis provides you:

  • A full chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph summary and commentary of The Little Prince, listing all the noticeable drama and narration effects.
  • A detailed commentary about the 25 plots of the tale.
  • A detailed commentary about the characters, their around 54 actantial roles and their thematic properties.
  • A reconstruction of the general outline of the plots of the story.
  • A study of the telling modes (narration, dialogues, discourse).
  • A study of the genres linked to the characters and plots
  • A study of the registers, tones and values used in the plots.

To improve one’s technique and make one’s knowledge concrete, there is nothing better than analyzing masterworks, and take the best out of them to re-use it in your own works!

Table of Contents

Introduction

  • The little prince in short
  • Methods and analysis tools

The little prince chapter by chapter summary and commentary

Synthesis

Are you writing a tale for children ? Learn from The little prince !!

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