The Little Prince Summary

The Little Prince Summary
A golden-haired boya little princeunexpectedly appears in the vast

Sahara, where a pilot has landed his plane because of engine problems. The
pilot is anxiously trying to fix the engine, for he has no food or water to
survive for long. The boy politely asks the pilot to draw him a picture of a
sheep. The pilot instead draws a picture from his own childhood: a boa
constrictor with an elephant in its stomach. The boy, exasperated, concludes
that adults cannot understand anything without numerous explanations. Only
after the pilot draws a box with air holes in it is the boy happy. Both the pilot
and the little prince understand that a sheep is inside the box.
Gradually, the man and the boy tame each other. The home from which
the little prince has come is an asteroid, hardly larger than a house; it holds
one rose, one baobab tree, and three volcanoes. The boy hopes to widen his
knowledge by visiting much larger places, such as the planet Earth, and
meeting the people, animals, and plants that live in those places. He is
inwardly preoccupied, however, with the safety of his dearly loved rose.
The little prince tells the pilot about his visits to other tiny asteroids, where
he met one single inhabitant on each: a king claiming to rule the universe,
although he has no subjects; a conceited man who sees everyone as his
admirer; a drunkard living in a stupor, drinking to forget his shame of being
an alcoholic; a businessman greedily counting the stars as his own treasure;
and a geographer who does not know the geography of his place and never
leaves his office. The smallest planet he has visited, which turns very rapidly
(with 1,440 sunsets per day), has no homes or people, yet the planets
lamplighter has no moment of rest as he constantly lights and puts out the
only lamp, following old orders that make no sense. The little prince, who
sees grown-ups as odd, respects the lamplighter for his dedicated, selfless
work.
In the Sahara, the prince meets the fox, who reveals to him the major secrets
of life. These secrets cannot be seen by the eyes, unless the heart is
involved. When the prince wants to play, the fox explains that connecting
takes time and patience; through such connecting, one rose among
thousands becomes special. The fox explains also that one is forever
responsible where love is involved, that words cause misunderstandings; that
rites and rituals are significant but often forgotten, and that crucial matters
are often ignored and not appreciated. These lessons help the little prince
understand his own mistakes, and he decides to return home to protect his
rose.
The boy meets the snake, who talks in riddles, and he understands the
creatures power to send him back where he came from quickly. The little
prince and the pilot are now both dying from thirst. In search of water, they
walk through the starry night. On the verge of collapse, the pilot carries his
little friend, not knowing whether they are even headed in the right direction.
At dawn, when it is almost too late to save their lives, they find a deep, old
well. The stars shimmer on the surface of the water. They drink, and the
water tastes unusually sweet to them. Both the man and the boy sense the
value of that moment. The pilot is sad; the prince feels fear mixed with joy,
because of his decision to go home. The water feels like an earned gift. The
prince comments that the beauty of the desert is in the knowledge that it
hides such a well.
The prince tells his friend that he will be leaving the next day. Neither
mentions the snake. When the little prince laughs to cheer his friend up, the
laughter sounds like the jingle of a million little bells. He offers the pilot a
farewell gift: From now on, when the pilot looks up on starry nights, he and
only he will hear the little princes laughter. It will be comforting for both of
them to know that they have each other.
The next day, on the one-year anniversary of the little princes arrival on
Earth, the pilot comes to the same spot where he met the boy. There he
glimpses the yellow flash of the snake as it bites the ankle of his little friend,
and the boy falls quietly and gently onto the sand. Later, the little princes
body is nowhere to be found. The pilot finally fixes his engine and leaves for
home, hoping that his friend is safely back at his home, too. In the years
afterward, on starry nights the pilot hears the little princes laugh and feels
warm in his heart: Love is a powerful, invisible thread connecting people no
matter how far apart in space and time they may be. Antoine de Saint
Exupry was born in France but wrote and illustrated The Little Princeduring
a self-imposed exile in America. This childrens book was published in 1943;
a year later, the author was presumably shot down while flying a
reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean for his French air squadron.
Summary
When he was six, the narrator read a book about jungles and was fascinated
with the fact that a boa constructor swallows its prey whole and then sleeps
for six months while the meal digests. He drew a picture of the boa in this
state; it looked kind of like a lumpy hat. When he showed it to adults, they all
thought it was a lumpy hat and told him to study the...

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The Little Prince Summary

A golden-haired boya little princeunexpectedly appears in the vast

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