Prince One of the Lessons

¶ … Prince

One of the lessons that The Little Prince teaches is that of finding beauty in everything, especially the things that many adults would consider inconsequential. The important things in life cannot be seen nor can they be bought in a store. The fox teaches the little prince that the only way to truly see is to look with the heart. In turn, the little prince teaches the narrator to look at things differently. He begins to understand that the stars in the sky are beautiful just as the single rose. The fox teaches the little prince that love takes time and cultivation. The fox is appreciative because the prince has taught him how to enjoy many things in the world around him. He tells him that his rose is unique because he has taken the time to care for it. He watered it and sheltered it from weather and these are the things that make it belong to him and nobody else. Time spent like this is not a waste as many would believe because it actually has results that are beneficial. Another important theme in the book is that joy is much like beauty in that it cannot be bought. The sharing of the water at the well is an example of this idea. The two share the sweet water and it is like the "lights of a Christmas tree, the music of Midnight Mass, the tenderness of smiling faces" (De Saint Exupery96). Here we see that we finds pleasure like this in unexpected ways and we should be open to this opportunities as they arrive in our lives and not find ourselves too busy to miss them.

2. I have learned that material things are not as important as we make them out to be. The prince points out that men have no time to understand this or anything. Rather, they "buy things all ready made at the shops" (83). The saddest part of all is that there is "no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship" (83). Here the lesson is that friendship cannot be bought with money but with the investment of time. Time is important to grown ups but in the wrong way. The prince tells the narrator that men "set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. The they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round" (94). Men are simply running around in circles. He also tells him, "The men where you live . . . raise five thousand roses in the same garden -- and they do not find in it what they are looking for . . . And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water" (96-7). I have learned to look beneath the surface of things to understand what they actually mean. The sad truth is that people do spend a lot of time running around and not getting very much done. We get caught up in routine and forget to look for the simple things in life that make us happy.

3. One idea I did not know about before reading this book was that it was about space travel. I think it is interesting that the narrator finds all kinds of characters doing all kinds of things and yet, through all of his journeys, his lessons are simple. Men, wherever they are, are not so different. When they grow up, they lose the kind of magic that they used to see the world with. They get busy with bills and works. The narrator knew this before his travels but was more convinced of it at the end of the book. I also never considered the idea of cultivating friendship like a garden but I can see how this is true because the people that have been your friends the longest are the best friends. These people know you the best and will be there for you. I also realized that what we do matters, even if it seems like we are doing boring or tedious things. The prince taking care of the rose is the best story because it seems like he is wasting his time but he is not. We often think if we are not getting paid, we might not be doing things but sometimes we just need to be doing them anyway.