Friday, January 22, 2010

Reading Log: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint


How does the text relate to the theme of a journey?

The story started with the author travelling alone. When he had an accident in the Sahara Dessert, he met the little prince. The little prince told him about his own journey on how he finally came to the Earth after visiting some of the planets. Thus, the text is mainly focusing around the adventure of the little prince.

What is the main issue in the text?

The story centered on how the thoughts of a child differ from that of the grown-ups. The grown-ups like to talk about things that are more realistic (eg: power, wealth, appearance). On the contrary, children are more likely to appreciate the true beauty of nature (eg: stars, flowers and volcanoes) which the grown-ups normally would not care about. In addition, grown-ups prefer stuff like geography, arithmetic and history (subjects that require memorizing skills) while children favor things like drawing and painting (subjects that need creativity). In brief, there is often conflict between grown-ups and children because both parties carrying a different point of view.

What quality do you admire or dislike in a character?

I admire the little prince the most. He has many good characteristic. Firstly, he never gives up asking the same question again and again until he gets a satisfying answer. For example, when he asked the fox what is mean by “tame”, he asked for 3 times until the fox finally explained to him. Other than that, he likes to care for the nature. He devoted his love and care towards the flowers and volcanoes. For example, a flower he took care of, which is the one and only, he works out everything according to the flower’s needs, watering it, protecting it from drought with screen and put it under a glass dome when the weather is cold. Last but not least, he is an adventurous and brave boy. He travelled across seven planets all by his own. Besides, he also dares to speak up his mind to oppose the thoughts and views of the adults.

How does the text develop your understanding to the world?

In the world of grown-ups, everything has to be related with realistic. They do not have time to think about abstract stuff which they cannot see with their naked eyes. As mentioned by the author in the text, ‘But eyes are blind. One must look with the heart’, adults are blindfolded by power, wealth, figures, egoism. They keep on searching for these things to feed their endless demand which in the end, they always do not satisfy with the result and often trapped within these traps set by them.

Children think simpler. Because their mind are not polluted by various external factor, they do not have unlimited demand. They can achieve satisfaction over a little thing such as watching the stars. They are not constricted to think creatively so they could let their imagination run wild by looking at something. Thus, they establish different perspectives from a thing, perhaps the views that no other adults could see with flat thinking.

However, as we grow up, we started to see things differently from what we saw when we were kids. The cruelty of society we learned after becoming adult will start to affect our original thinking of how the world is like and should be. Without having a good sense of realization and firm mentality, we will slowly turned into the adult that have the same thinking as mentioned just now. Therefore, we should establish our own principle and follow it and do not let the negative external factors influence our purest heart.


Author: Antoine de Saint

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