The Little Prince

The intended audience for the book The Little Prince is adults. The author, Antoine De Saint-Exupery, uses phrases and word choice that are a bit difficult for children to understand. The tone of this short story is adventurous and some-what melancholy. He is trying to teach the secret of what is important in life. This concept is not something children will quite understand, but adults know well enough to think deeply upon this thought. Children are innocent to the world, while adults are more susceptible to the real world problems, which slowly deteriorate their imaginations.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery appeals to ethos where he is the author of this famous book. It is worldly known for which it has been translated into many different languages.

In chapter one, the narrator once drew two pictures, one with an elephant in a boa constrictor form the outside and another from the inside. He shows them to adults, but they just one is a hat and one would be unreasonable. Here they lack an imagination and told him to give up. In contrast, the little prince knew right away that the picture was of an elephant in a boa constrictor. For the most part, The Little Prince characterizes narrow-mindedness as a trait of adults.

In the beginning of chapter four, the narrator tells of a Turkish astronomer who made a discovery of another planet, asteroid B-612. He makes a formal presentation to the International Astronomical Congress, wearing traditional Turkish dressings. He is ignored and he makes another attempt, this time wearing a very elegant suit and everyone believes him now. The narrator states “if I’ve told you these details about Asteroid B-612 and if I’ve given you its number, it is on account of the grown-ups. Grown-ups like numbers (pg.10).” This part of the story appeals to logos. The author tries to say that adults like facts and figures, without them things would be unimportant and irrelevant.

As the story progresses, other examples of the blindness of adults emerge. As the little prince travels from planet to planet, the six adults he encounters reveal their character traits, whose contradictions and shortcomings the little prince then exposes.

On the first planet the little prince visits, he encounters a king who claims to rule the entire universe. While not unkindly, the king’s power is empty. He is able to command people to do only what they already would do. The little prince proved this when he asked the king to command the sun to set, whilst