Plot Analysis

Analysis
By analyzing the characters, their actions and words, the reader may get a sense of the direction
of the story. Properly, this refers to PLOT, which in our previous discussions, has been defined as the
“sequence or arrangement of events in a story.” Throughout our experience of reading different stories,
we realize that PLOT, i.e. the sequence of events, has been used in diverse and creative ways.
Traditionally, the “sequence of events” is understood as CHRONOLOGICAL, i.e. narrated as the

events happen in linear, chronological time (which happenings came before and after).
In modern times, the “sequence of events” is disturbed and disorder deliberately, digressing
from the chronology in order to render a more artistic arrangement. It is a challenge for the reader to
grasp the plot of a non-linear, non-chronological stories.
Using the PLOT diagram below, try to break down the story of “The Little Prince”:
Plot:
The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara Desert. The crash badly damages his airplane
and leaves the narrator with very little food or water. As he is worrying over his predicament, he is
approached by the little prince, a very serious little blond boy who asks the narrator to draw him a sheep.
The narrator obliges, and the two become friends. The pilot learns that the little prince comes
from a small planet that the little prince calls Asteroid 325 but that people on Earth call Asteroid B-612.
In the middle of the desert, the narrator is unexpectedly greeted by a young boy who is nicknamed as "the
little prince”. The prince has golden hair, a lovable laugh, and will repeat questions until they are
answered. The little prince took great care of this planet, preventing any bad seeds from growing and
making sure it was never overrun by baobab trees.
One day, a mysterious rose sprouted on the planet and the little prince fell in love with it. But
when he caught the rose in a lie one day, he decided that he could not trust her anymore. He grew lonely
and decided to leave. Despite a last-minute reconciliation with the rose, the prince set out to explore other
planets and cure his loneliness. He prince laments that he did not understand how to love his rose while
he was with her and should have listened to her kind actions, rather than her vain words.
The prince has since visited six other planets, each of which was inhabited by a single, irrational,
narrow-minded adult, each meant to critique an element of society. On the first six planets the little prince
visits, he meets a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer, all of
whom live alone and are overly consumed by their chosen occupations. Such strange behavior both
amuses and perturbs the little prince. He does not understand their need to order people around, to be
admired, and to own everything. With the exception of the lamplighter, whose dogged faithfulness he
admires, the little prince does not think much of the adults he visits, and he does not learn anything
useful. However, he learns from the geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss the
rose he has left behind.
At the geographer’s suggestion, the little prince visits Earth, but he lands in the middle of the
desert and cannot find any humans. Instead, he meets a snake who speaks in riddles and hints darkly that
its lethal poison can send the little prince back to the heavens if he so wishes. The little prince ignores the
offer and continues his explorations, stopping to talk to a three-petaled flower and to climb the tallest
mountain he can find, where he confuses the echo of his voice for conversation. Eventually, the little
prince finds a rose garden, which surprises and depresses him, his rose had told him that she was the only
one of her kind.
The prince befriends a fox, who teaches him that the important things in life are visible only to
the heart, that his time away from the rose makes the rose more special to him, and that love makes a
person responsible for the beings that one loves. The little prince realizes that, even though there are
many roses, his love for his rose makes her unique and that he is therefore responsible for her. Despite
this revelation, he still feels very lonely because he is so far away from his rose. The prince ends his story
by describing his encounters with two men, a railway switchman and a salesclerk.
It is now the narrator’s eighth day in the desert, and at the prince’s suggestion, they set off to find
a well. The water feeds their hearts as much as their bodies, and the two share a moment of bliss as they
agree that too many people do not see what is truly important in life. The little prince’s mind, however, is
fixed on returning to his rose, and he begins making plans with the snake to head back to his planet. The
narrator is able to fix his plane on the day before the one-year anniversary of the prince’s arrival on Earth,
and he walks sadly with his friend out to the place the prince landed. The snake bites the prince, who falls
noiselessly to the sand.
The prince finds a well, saving them. The narrator later finds the prince talking to the snake,
discussing his return home and his desire to see his rose again, who, he worries, has been left to fend for
herself. The prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator and states that if it looks as though he has
died, it is only because his body was too heavy to take with him to his planet. The prince warns the
narrator not to watch him leave, as it will upset him. The narrator, realizing what will happen, refuses to
leave the prince's side. The prince consoles the narrator by saying that he only needs look at the stars to
think of the prince's lovable laughter, and that it will seem as if all the stars are laughing. The prince then
walks away from the narrator and allows the snake to bite him, soundlessly falling down.
The next morning, the narrator is unable to find the prince's body. He finally manages to repair
his airplane and leave the desert. It is left up to the reader to determine if the prince returned home, or
died. The story ends with a drawing of the landscape where the prince and the narrator met and where the
snake took the prince's corporeal life. The narrator requests to be immediately contacted by anyone in that
area encountering a small person with golden curls who refuses to answer any questions.

Plot Analysis

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Analysis

Traditionally, the “sequence of events” is understood as CHRONOLOGICAL, i.e. narrated as the

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