Critical Approaches to "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery

The Little Prince is the surreal story of a pilot who crashes in the desert and meets a boy from another planet. I love the book because it is simple, encasing themes of love and death within the form of a fairytale-like narrative.

• New historicism: Since the Little Prince was written during world war II, I could claim that the text is escapist, meant to contrast with the atrocities of war. Alternatively, I could analyze the men that the prince meets and examine how they might represent personality traits of world leaders during the war.

• Ecocriticism: I could make an argument about the delicate balance between man and nature, and the way that each is always trying to subdue/conquer the other (examples: the baobab trees, extinct volcanoes, ownership of stars). Alternative: focus on scene, compare the stark desert to the loneliness of the other planets.>

• Psychoanalytical: Based on Freudian psychology, I could discuss how the entire story is shaped by the pilot's childhood experiences described in the first chapter. The prince's function is to allow the pilot to uncover everything that his adulthood has caused him to repress.

• Biographical: Saint Exupery was a pilot as well as a writer. It would be interesting to view The Little Prince as a sort of imaginative autobiography, possibly reflecting the way that he viewed death.

Jaidyn's Exploration Report

I based my searches on “The Little Prince” and found a lot of interesting ideas in a surprisingly short amount of time. There were a few dramatic interpretations that looked interesting. The first is a play (presumably for children) that combines the story of “The Little Prince” with “Alice in Wonderland.” This made me think about how we view “children’s literature” versus “grown-up literature” and the role that childhood plays in the minds of adults. Another play portrays the prince as having African descent and makes the pilot a woman, which obviously changes the gender and racial implications of the original novel.

There is a lot of beautiful art based on the book, most of it very whimsical and colorful. A large number of portraits of the prince also include the fox– this made me think about how interesting it is that people are so fixated on the fox, who is ultimately a tragic figure. Why does tragedy demand our attention? Perhaps the most interesting thing I found was a syllabus for a class based solely on a Chinese translation of “The Little Prince.” The professor reasoned that the book contains ideas and themes that can be understood across a wide range of cultures, and is thus a good tool for language and cultural learning. So the question: what makes the book so universal?

https://www.list.co.uk/event/1377908-alice-and-the-little-prince/ (Alice)
https://www.posterlounge.com/p/696994.html (Fox)
https://stratford-circus.com/event/the-little-prince/#data-sc-tabs-alt-index%3D%220%22=overview (African descent)
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/melsanborn/files/syllabus_-_fiction_in_chinese.docx (Chinese translation)

Jaidyn's Reflection on Literary Analysis 1

When we first started the pre-writing activities, I realized that I was being tricked into doing something that I usually leave to the last minute or don’t do at all, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But I can definitely see the value in it.  Thinking of ideas is easily the most difficult part of writing. Once I have ideas and substance, tying it all together is a very doable task. And I actually love that we started with general literary sources. I usually hate research because scholarly stuff can feel dense and intimidating, so it was nice to have a different starting point, and I feel like I’ll apply these techniques to future writing projects in other classes.

Jaidyn's "Ozymandias" Prewriting

A Poem that Mirrored my Mind

By Jaidyn Eardley

Though I had always loved literature, I tended to avoid poetry as something silly and insubstantial-- until I heard a poem that resonated with me.

I sat encased in a room of dusty red curtains, glossed wooden floors and beams. It was a building that came from another time, filled with people who wished that they did too.  A girl stepped to the podium with a mixture of abashment and confidence. Her poem, unlike the previous readings, was too well-known to be particularly interesting to very cultured people. Thankfully, I was not one. As she began to read, I was entranced. “Let us go then, you and I...”

You and I. Me, my freshman year of college: good enough at everything but not good enough at anything. I take classes that spark interest but not passion, and find myself part of the unseen and unheard majority of college freshmen; I don’t know what to do. 

Jaidyn's literary moments

Jaidyn's Literary Moments

I girl I don't know read a poem [Literature Performed]

My freshman year at BYU, I went to a poetry reading. One girl read a poem that was beautiful and melodic, and I immediately looked it up after the reading, determined to remember it. The line that still comes into my mind sometimes is "In the room women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo." 

The story within a song [Literary within Musical Experience]

I stumbled across a song once called "Fictional State" and just loved it! It took me a few times listening to figure out that it was about an unmarried couple finding out that the girl was pregnant. It's kinda a weird song topic, but it was also a great way to tell a sad story. 

The Shakespeare we don't know (maybe) [Memorization of Literature]

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep." That's one part I can remember from the passage I memorized in 8th grade. At the time I didn't understand it at all, and I still don't know what play it's from, but it evoked new emotions and images for me. 

Mr. Darcy is cuter in the book [Cinematic Literary Experience]

Some time after reading Pride and Prejudice, I saw the movie with Keira Knightly. I was pleased-- it preserved the story and characters. But I was also impressed by how much more was in the book itself-- there are so many small conversations and details! I'd read it versus watch it. 

My poems [Literary Coping]

Poetry was never interesting to me until one day in high school when I opened my phone and typed out a poem. None of the poems are very good, but they became essential for me as I worked through the stresses, loneliness, and demands of my high school years. 

Life, love, and a little child [Religious Literary Experience]

The book The Little Prince caused me a lot of reflection. It made me question my perspective on the way I viewed the world, and especially on how I treat the people that I love. There's a part where the boy "tames" a fox. When he leaves, the fox is devastated, but knows that it was worth it to be tamed (aka to love and be loved). 

Jaidyn's Academic Writing Self-assessment

One of my strengths in academic writing is that I can generally keep the paper focused around a central claim. While learning to write papers as a child, I was bothered by the need to have a thesis statement; my ideas seemed too varied and numerous to capture in one sentence. Now, having a central claim is immensely helpful to me. It influences every aspect of the work– each subclaim, piece of evidence, and quotation must ultimately act as support for the claim. Having a strong thesis gives me purpose and motivation as I write.

Before going on, I would like to say that I know how important it is for academic writing to be filled with reliable sources and evidence. With that said, I hate having to fill my papers with reliable sources and evidence. I am not good at research, despite hours of practice clicking on links to scholarly articles. In my freshman year biology class, the final project was a paper, and it was a stretch just to find the three required scholarly sources and apply them well.

Jaidyn's Shelfies

 Me, at the most aesthetically pleasing shelf in the BYU bookstore (fiction).

A snapshot of my shelf!