Meetings of the little prince and his discoveries. Blog of the Center for Emotional-Imaginative Therapy Linde N.D. Watch the video “The Little Prince and the Fox”
In 1943, the work of interest to us was first published. Let's talk briefly about the background of its creation, and then carry out an analysis. “The Little Prince” is a work whose writing was inspired by one incident that happened to its author.
In 1935, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was involved in a plane crash during a flight from Paris to Saigon. He ended up in a territory located in the Sahara, in its northeastern part. Memories of this accident and the Nazi invasion prompted the author to think about the responsibility of people for the Earth, about the fate of the world. In 1942, he wrote in his diary that he was worried about his generation, devoid of spiritual content. People lead a herd existence. To return spiritual concerns to a person is the task that the writer set for himself.
Who is the work dedicated to?
The story we are interested in is dedicated to Leon Vert, a friend of Antoine. This is important to note when conducting analysis. “The Little Prince” is a story in which everything is filled with deep meaning, including the dedication. After all, Leon Werth is a Jewish writer, journalist, critic who suffered persecution during the war. Such a dedication was not just a tribute to friendship, but also a bold challenge from the writer to anti-Semitism and Nazism. In difficult times, Exupery created his fairy tale. He fought against violence with words and illustrations, which he hand-created for his work.
Two worlds in the story
Two worlds are presented in this story - adults and children, as our analysis shows. “The Little Prince” is a work in which the division is not made according to age. For example, the pilot is an adult, but he managed to preserve his childish soul. The author divides people according to ideals and ideas. For adults, the most important things are their own affairs, ambition, wealth, power. But a child’s soul yearns for something else - friendship, mutual understanding, beauty, joy. Antithesis (children and adults) helps to reveal the main conflict of the work - the confrontation between two different systems of values: real and false, spiritual and material. It goes deeper further. Having left the planet, the little prince meets “strange adults” on his way, whom he is unable to understand.
Travel and dialogue
The composition is based on travel and dialogue. The general picture of the existence of humanity, which is losing its moral values, is recreated by the meeting with the “adults” of the little prince.
The main character travels in the story from asteroid to asteroid. He visits, first of all, the nearest ones, where people live alone. Each asteroid has a number, like apartments in a modern multi-story building. These numbers hint at the separation of people who live in neighboring apartments, but seem to live on different planets. For the little prince, meeting the inhabitants of these asteroids becomes a lesson in loneliness.
Meeting with the King
On one of the asteroids lived a king who, like other kings, looked at the whole world in a very simplified way. For him, his subjects are all people. However, this king was tormented by the following question: “Who is to blame for the fact that his orders are impossible to fulfill?” The king taught the prince that it is more difficult to judge himself than others. Having mastered this, you can become truly wise. The power-hungry loves power, not subjects, and therefore is deprived of the latter.
The Prince Visits the Ambitious Planet
An ambitious man lived on another planet. But vain people are deaf to everything except praise. The ambitious man loves only fame, not the public, and therefore remains without the latter.
Drunkard's Planet
Let's continue the analysis. The little prince ends up on the third planet. His next meeting is with a drunkard, who thinks intently about himself and ends up completely confused. This man is ashamed of his drinking. However, he drinks in order to forget about his conscience.
Business man
The business man owned the fourth planet. As an analysis of the fairy tale “The Little Prince” shows, the meaning of his life was that one should find something that does not have an owner and appropriate it. A business man counts wealth that is not his: he who saves only for himself might as well count the stars. The little prince cannot understand the logic by which adults live. He concludes that it is good for his flower and the volcanoes that he owns them. But the stars have no benefit from such possession.
Lamplighter
And only on the fifth planet the main character finds a person with whom he wants to make friends. This is a lamplighter who would be despised by everyone, because he thinks not only about himself. However, his planet is tiny. There's no room for two here. The lamplighter works in vain because he does not know for whom.
Meeting with a geographer
The geographer, who writes thick books, lived on the sixth planet, which was created in his story by Exupery (“The Little Prince”). The analysis of the work would be incomplete if we did not say a few words about it. This is a scientist, and beauty is ephemeral for him. Nobody needs scientific works. Without love for a person, it turns out, everything is meaningless - honor, power, labor, science, conscience, and capital. The little prince also leaves this planet. The analysis of the work continues with a description of our planet.
The Little Prince on Earth
The last place the prince visited was a strange Earth. When he arrives here, the title character of Exupery's story "The Little Prince" feels even more lonely. The analysis of a work when describing it should be more detailed than when describing other planets. After all, the author pays special attention to the Earth in the story. He notices that this planet is not home at all, it is “salty”, “all in needles” and “completely dry”. It's uncomfortable to live there. Its definition is given through images that seemed strange to the little prince. The boy notes that this planet is not simple. It is ruled by 111 kings, there are 7 thousand geographers, 900 thousand businessmen, 7.5 million drunkards, 311 million ambitious people.
The protagonist's journey continues in the following sections. He meets, in particular, with the switchman directing the train, but people do not know where they are going. The boy then sees a merchant selling thirst pills.
Among the people living here, the little prince feels lonely. Analyzing life on Earth, he notes that there are so many people on it that they cannot feel like one whole. Millions remain strangers to each other. What do they live for? There are a lot of people rushing on fast trains - why? People are not connected by pills or fast trains. And the planet will not become a home without this.
Friendship with Fox
After analyzing Exupery's "The Little Prince", we found out that the boy is bored on Earth. And Fox, another hero of the work, has a boring life. Both of them are looking for a friend. The fox knows how to find him: you need to tame someone, that is, create bonds. And the main character understands that there are no stores where you can buy a friend.
The author describes the life before meeting the boy, which was led by the Fox from the story “The Little Prince”. allows us to note that before this meeting he was only fighting for his existence: he hunted chickens, and hunters hunted him. The fox, having tamed, broke out of the circle of defense and attack, fear and hunger. It is to this hero that the formula “only the heart is vigilant” belongs. Love can be transferred to many other things. Having made friends with the main character, the Fox will fall in love with everything else in the world. The close in his mind is connected with the distant.
Pilot in the desert
It is easy to imagine a planet in habitable places as a home. However, in order to understand what home is, you need to be in the desert. This is precisely what the analysis of Exupery’s “The Little Prince” suggests. In the desert, the main character met a pilot, with whom he later became friends. The pilot ended up here not only because of a malfunction of the plane. He has been enchanted by the desert all his life. The name of this desert is loneliness. The pilot understands an important secret: life has meaning when there is someone to die for. The desert is a place in which a person feels a thirst for communication and thinks about the meaning of existence. It reminds us that man’s home is the Earth.
What did the author want to tell us?
The author wants to say that people have forgotten one simple truth: they are responsible for their planet, as well as for those they have tamed. If we all understood this, there would probably be no wars or economic problems. But people are very often blind, do not listen to their own hearts, leave their home, seeking happiness far from their family and friends. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry did not write his fairy tale “The Little Prince” for fun. The analysis of the work carried out in this article, we hope, has convinced you of this. The writer appeals to all of us, urging us to take a close look at those who surround us. After all, these are our friends. They must be protected, according to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (“The Little Prince”). Let's finish the analysis of the work here. We invite readers to reflect on this story for themselves and continue the analysis with their own observations.
Existential crisis therapy: restoring contact with the inner child (2)
(Continuation)
Aliens
Our hero manages, without the help of a psychotherapist, to meet with his still living, creative part - his childhood experience. The Little Prince appears when the Adult is in despair, when he is trying to “fix” himself and his a broken life... “Imagine my surprise when at dawn someone’s thin voice woke me up. He said: “Please... Draw me a lamb.” From the point of view of psychotherapy, it is not surprising that it was at this point that the meeting took place. At the point where there was once a loss of contact with your desires, with your creative self, with faith in your capabilities. But the point of “breakdown” can become a point of “assembly”, restoration, growth. It is no coincidence that the Little Prince asks to draw a lamb for him. In the adult world, no one recognized the author’s right to embody his ideas; he was assessed and condemned. In the children's world, he is able to draw anything with the support of the Other, who believes in his capabilities and accepts his creativity. The adult draws him what he drew before, but to his surprise he hears: “No, I don’t need an elephant in a boa constrictor... I need a lamb. Draw a lamb."
Thus, the Little Prince easily solved a difficult problem for adults, seeing in the drawing exactly what its author wanted to show - an elephant in a boa constrictor. After several unsuccessful attempts to draw a lamb, Saint-Exupery's hero comes up with an original method that is adequate to a developed child's imagination. He draws a box and says: “Here is a box for you. It contains the kind of lamb you want.”To his amazement, the Little Prince highly appreciated his work. Why? The answer is simple: children's imagination is richer than reality. By drawing not a lamb, but a box in which the lamb sits, the adult, instead of a specific shape, provided the child with the opportunity to create a potential set of shapes.
Vague, non-specific, ambiguous stimuli include a projective mechanism that allows you to launch the processes of transferring intrapersonal content to external objects. The Adult's picture of the world is defined, described and concrete. The child’s picture of the world is not complete, and therefore, in the process of perceiving the world, the child simultaneously builds it, learns and creates it. The world of a child is potential, incomplete. A child’s picture of the world is akin to the world of a schizophrenic: it is individual, symbolic, and full of meanings that are understandable only to him. Adult reality is a reality that is complete and shared: adults have built their own world and agreed on what is what in this world. For an Adult, the Child’s picture of the world, like the psychotic’s picture of the world, is delusional - flowers and animals talk in it, it is possible to travel from one planet to another... It is not surprising that for an Adult, the Child’s world is fundamentally incomprehensible, and the child for him is an alien using another communication system.
Therapy by meeting your childhood experiences
A condition for successful therapy is the ability to both understand the client’s language and speak to him in the same language. This skill presupposes the ability to explore the client’s phenomenology. Everything the client says is true for the therapist. Why? Yes, because there is no objective, unambiguous truth. It is always individual, specific, adequate to the situation and exists “here-and-now”. A psychotherapist is a specialist in changing the subjective picture of the world. He is unable to transform objective reality: change the people around the client, provide him with financial assistance, etc. However, it helps the client modify the system of relationships and see a different perspective. This becomes possible due to a change in position: from an all-knowing adult point of view to an open, naive child's perception. Change from a formidable investigator to someone who wonders why the world knows why. Thanks to this, the client has a choice: crises become a point of growth; alternative solutions appear for a problem that seemed insoluble; a way out of a seemingly deadlock situation is suddenly discovered.
This is exactly what happened to our hero. The meeting with the Little Prince allowed him to “turn on”, reanimate, awaken his forgotten childhood, and regain the ability to see things as they really are. A series of adult world-planets passes before his eyes: the planet of the King, the Ambitious, the Drunkard, the Business Man, the Lamplighter, the Geographer. The restored abilities allowed him, through the example of these characters, to see in a new way the limitations of the worldview of many Adults. He discovers that each of these characters is obsessed with something, dependent on something. Their life is subordinated to dead ideas; it is empty and meaningless.
Everyone has established ways of reacting that go unnoticed and do not change, even if they become absurd. Each of these characters lives completely alone on their own planet. At the same time, the King tries to command, despite the absence of subjects and retinue; The ambitious man demands admiration; A drunkard gets drunk so as not to hear the voice of his conscience;
A business man counts the stars, not remembering what they are called and why he is doing this; The lamplighter obsessively turns the lantern on and off; A geographer formally records information about the world around him without ever leaving his planet. Each new meeting of the Little Prince increases his surprise and misunderstanding of the absurd behavior of Adults. “Yes, without a doubt, adults are very, very strange people.”
All the characters that the Little Prince met - the King,
The ambitious man, the drunkard, the business man, the lamplighter, the geographer are fixated on dead ideas, their lives are empty, meaningless and stereotypical. They can only be conditionally called people - after all, they have not felt anything for a long time. Paradoxically, the only Adult who has feelings is the Drunkard who feels shame. The emotional world of the other characters is “flattened”: they have forgotten what emotions and experiences are. The absence of feelings gives them the opportunity to avoid mental pain, not to think about the meaning - or meaninglessness - of their life. However, a person without feelings is a person with an atrophied soul. Feelings, emotions, no matter how painful they are, are a sign that the soul has not died.
All these characters can be considered as a “total Adult”. Indeed, the average adult is concerned with issues of power, but not love; work, but not relationships; personal achievements, but not caring for others; repeating meaningless actions, and not searching for meaning... This is incomprehensible to the Little Prince, who is still learning about the world, is open to new things and is ready for changes.
If we consider the story as a Meeting, then this is a meeting of two worlds - the world of childhood and the adult world. By meeting, they can mutually enrich each other. However, only the Other, who respects his own and others’ choices, can support a development project that is different from a pedagogical project (aimed at manipulation, change in the desired direction, allowing the output to be a convenient and recognizable “product” in the form of an obedient, “adapted” child ). None of the Adults - the inhabitants of the planets - are capable of this. In fact, the Meeting did not take place, because for contact it is important to see the Other, try to understand him, notice the difference between the Other and himself. But none of these characters was able to go beyond their narrow world and “hear the stars.”
Stages of attachment formation
After six unsuccessful attempts to find the Other, the little prince ends up on Earth. "So the seventh planet he visited was Earth." Seven is a symbol of completion. In seven days, God created the Earth. Seven days a week. Seven colors in the rainbow. Seven tones of music. Seven deadly sins. Seven wonders of the world. Seven (plus or minus two) determines the capacity of human memory. Seven I am family. The magical seven in the cultures of various peoples of the world has the meaning of maximum, limit, completeness, limitation. Seven is a completed gestalt, and the Little Prince is nearing the end of his mission.
And then the Fox appeared in the life of the Little Prince.
This meeting is the most important meeting in all history. The little prince, who has experienced misunderstanding and disappointment in his relationship with the rose, having previously met only dependent and obsessed people, finally meets the Other, with whom he carefully comes into contact.
“Play with me,” asked the little prince. - I am so sad...
“I can’t play with you,” said the Fox. - I'm not tamed...
- How is it to tame?..
“This is a long-forgotten concept,” explained the Fox. - It means: to create bonds.
- Bonds?
“That’s it,” said the Fox. For me, you are still just a little boy, just like a hundred thousand other boys. And I don't need you. And you don't need me either. For you I am just a fox, just like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we will need each other...”
This description, in our opinion, is the most accurate and detailed illustration of the beginning of a therapeutic relationship. The ideas of technologization of all processes today are rapidly penetrating into psychotherapy. How to treat depression? What techniques are best to use with shy children? How to work more effectively with codependents? But it is impossible to fix a broken thing by breaking it into even smaller parts. It is impossible to help a person suffering due to an unsatisfactory relationship by ignoring the actual interaction with the therapist. That is why, in order for therapy to be successful, it is necessary to first create a trusting relationship. And this takes time, sometimes quite a long time.
The idea expressed by Lees of “creating bonds”, associated with testing security, with slowly establishing relationships, with the opportunity to approach and move away, is very consonant with ideas about therapeutic contact. Unlike dependence, “correct” attachment relationships presuppose freedom of approach and distance. At the same time, when approaching, you do not feel the fear of being absorbed, and when moving away (separating?), you do not experience painful guilt and horror of loneliness... Therefore, many people resonate with the words of the Fox that you can only know those things that you tame - that is, those things to which you are truly attached. However, “people no longer have enough time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But there are no shops where friends trade, and people no longer have friends.”
The relationship that the Fox offers the Little Prince illustrates how the therapist-client relationship emerges and develops.
“- If you want to have a friend, tame me!
- What should be done for this? - asked the little prince.
“We must be patient,” answered the Fox. - First, sit over there, at a distance... I’ll look sideways at you... But every day, sit a little closer... It’s better to always come at the same hour... For example, if you come at four o'clock, I'll already feel happy at three o'clock... At four o'clock I'll already start to worry and worry. I will find out the price of happiness! And if you come every time at a different time, I don’t know what time to prepare my heart... You need to observe the rituals.”
Compliance with the terms of the therapeutic contract is a critical part of therapy. The client must come to the therapist on “his” day, at “his” time. Failure to respect the time boundaries of the therapeutic process is destructive both for fragile relationships that are just beginning to form, and for long-existing relationships. Postponements of therapeutic sessions by the therapist or his lateness are unacceptable, as they have a destructive effect on the therapy process. However, if the therapist remains stable and follows the agreements, then all the client's non-verbal signals (lateness, postponements, cancellations of sessions) can be analyzed as messages that are difficult for the client to deal with directly. Long-term therapy allows the therapist to “interiorize,” due to which the client gains greater stability, begins to value relationships and time, and also learns to express his aggression in words rather than actions.
Let's return to the story. The little prince passed the test with honor. He came every day to meet the Fox and sat a little closer. Slowly and gradually he tamed the Fox. This new experience changed his life. It is the acquisition of the experience of attachment that allows you to realize that “your rose is the only one in the world,” it is unique to you, because it is yours.
While parting, the Little Prince learned from the Fox an important secret: only the heart is vigilant.“You can’t see the most important thing with your eyes”...
This is very consonant with the idea of psychotherapists of various directions about the importance of feelings, emotions and experiences for understanding oneself and others. And even the exaggerated thesis - “you are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed” - sounds like a message about the importance of human relationships, intimacy, friendship and love, as opposed to relationships of dependence (you and I are one), counter-dependence (you and I are opposites) ) and independence (I am me, you are you). However, only interdependence, according to M. Mahler, allows human
age to acquire the ability to move freely between the poles of proximity and distance without experiencing discomfort. The Little Prince receives a gift from the Fox of “good form” - the idea of interdependence, which implies the ability to be oneself and be with another, freely moving between the poles of the continuum and without feeling guilt, fear, shame, pain and disappointment.
The meeting with the Fox gave the Little Prince the opportunity to get to know himself better and see the Other, taught him how to build and maintain relationships, despite the difficulties, misunderstandings, and resentments that arise in them.
(To be continued)
Goal: to help students reveal the philosophical meaning of the fairy tale; to develop the skills to extract the necessary information from the text, characterize the characters and evaluate their actions, participate in dialogue, find answers to problematic questions; improve the ability to analyze literary works of philosophical content; develop students' creative abilities, memory, thinking, speech; cultivate moral qualities: kindness, the ability to make friends, a sense of responsibility for those around you.
During the classes:
Epigraph: " Each person has his own stars"
A. Saint-Exupery
Organizational stage.
II. Motivation for learning activities.
Teacher: After all, if the stars light up,
does anyone need this?
So it's necessary
so that every evening over the rooftops
Did at least one star light up?!
This question has been asked by hundreds of sages. And the Little Prince says thoughtfully: “I would like to know why the stars glow.” And you guys, when was the last time you looked at the stars?
And when did you talk to each other heart to heart? Not about lessons, not about football, not about a new computer game, but about something intimate that you can’t talk about with everyone? And, in general, is there such a person, besides your mother, to whom you can tell everything about yourself, all the way to the bottom, without hiding anything?
Thinking... Probably, you say to yourself: “What stars, what a soul, if you don’t have time to breathe without them, there are problems that are much more important: tests, lessons...”
But today let’s try to stop at least for a while, tell ourselves “stop”, take your time, think about the eternal!
I invite you to think about the most important philosophical questions. Today we will try to answer the questions:
Problematic questions (on the board)
Why does a person live? What is true happiness?
What does true friendship and true love mean?
And our interlocutors will be a kind, wise man, the well-known French writer A. de Saint-Exupéry and, of course, the main character of his fairy tale, the mysterious Little Prince. (Slide 2)
– Open your notebooks, write down the date and topic of the lesson.
III. Updating of reference knowledge.
- Let's remember who this fairy tale is dedicated to.
– Which phrase made you think and why? (« After all, all adults were children at first, only few of them remember this». Adults do not always understand children. And if they remembered themselves as small and could think from the position of a child, they would quickly find a common language with their children).
How often does it happen in life that adults do not always understand children. And often children do not understand adults. An adult lives with his mind, and a child lives with his soul and intuition, which, unfortunately, he loses as he grows up.
Today I want to mentally return to childhood with you. After all, probably every adult wanted this more than once. So, let's return to little Antoine Exupery. We are talking about the fact that the author himself appears before us in the image of the Little Prince.
1) Conversation
– Who did little Antoine dream of becoming? (Artist).
- Why did you decide so? (Confirmation with words from the text chapter 1)
– Did the adults understand him? Why? ( « Adults never understand anything themselves, and for children it is very tiring to endlessly explain and explain everything to them.»).
– Read what the adults advised after the boy, having clarified the drawing, explained its essence? (« The adults advised me not to draw snakes either outside or inside, but to be more interested in geography, history, arithmetic and spelling»).
– What did the advice of adults lead to? (The child has lost faith in himself.)
Is adult support important?
What does adult support inspire in a child? (self-confidence, self-confidence).
2) Characteristics of the hero
Now let's introduce the Little Prince. Draw his portrait in words. (Chapter 2).
Once upon a time there lived on a small planet the size of a house the Little Prince, an extraordinary boy with golden hair. He came to Earth from another planet, asteroid B-612 (Slide 3). Every day, the little prince cleaned the volcanoes on which he heated breakfast, and weeded out the roots of the baobab trees so that they would not take over the planet. U it was a rule: got up in the morning, washed, put myself in order - and immediately put your planet in order (Slide 4). The life of the Little Prince on this planet was sad and monotonous. For a long time he had only one entertainment - admiring the sunset.
– What else do you know about the Little Prince? (The little prince is very lonely. He lives on a small planet, asteroid B-612. There grew a beautiful Rose, whom the little prince began to look after(Slide 5) .He fell in love with this capricious flower.
3) Comparative characteristics of the Little Prince and Rose.
There are cards in front of you on your desks. In the task you are given various words. Find among them those that relate to the character of the rose and the prince. Be careful! Some words will be redundant.
On the tables are the words: flirtatiousness, affection, capriciousness, caring, touchiness, patience, pride, immodesty, unhappiness, guilt, courage, anger, joy.(Slide 6)
– One day the baby quarreled with her, and then he decided to travel to other planets) .
– Why do you think he went on a trip? (He goes to look for another equally beautiful dream flower in the hope that this will be his true friend.)
III . Learning new material.
1) Quiz with elements of text analysis
– So we will go with you on a journey along the planets with the Little Prince.
Guess the planets by description and answer what is valuable for the inhabitants of asteroids.
1) purple, ermine, sit, subject, robe (Planet of the King).
– Describe the meeting of the Little Prince with the king.
What is valuable to a king?( power).
– Who should be judged if only the king lives on the planet?
– What is difficult to do towards yourself?
– Find a phrase from the book. (“Then judge yourself,” said the king. “This is the most difficult thing.”)
Lesson: It is much more difficult to judge yourself than others. If you can judge yourself correctly, then you are truly wise ». « Everyone must be asked what they can give,” “The government must be reasonable.”
– Let’s continue the quiz: 2) funny hat, admire, clap your hands, vain people (Planet of the Ambitious).
An ambitious person is a person who strives for an honorable position and craves fame.
– Describe the meeting of the Little Prince with the ambitious man.
What is valuable to him ? (glory, veneration)
Vanity - an arrogant desire for fame, for veneration .
– Find the lines that the Little Prince says about vain people. They are the lesson
« Vain people are deaf to everything except praise ».
– Let’s continue: 3) empty, full, I want to forget, ashamed, poor fellow. (Planet of the Drunkard).
How did the Little Prince feel when meeting an inhabitant of this planet? ? (The inhabitant of the third planet plunged the little traveler into despondency).
For a drunkard, the value is alcoholic drinks.
– What should a person do in such a situation? How to change your life?
Lesson: Find the strength to change yourself.
4) five hundred million, serious, counting and recounting, locking it . (Planet of the Business Man).
What does a Business Man do on his planet? (busy mindlessly counting stars).
For a business person, wealth is value.
What words did the Little Prince say about this man? ?( « In his entire life he has never smelled a flower, never looked at a star, never loved anyone, he is not a man, he is a mushroom»).
Lesson:If the main thing for a person is wealth, his life has been lived in vain.
5) least of all, born, fall asleep, persuasion, faster. (Planet of the Lamplighter).
– What did the Little Traveler see on the fifth planet? (the lamplighter alternately lit and extinguished the lantern, because that was the agreement).
Did the Little Prince like the lamplighter? ? (I liked him because he was true to his word. The lamplighter thinks not only about himself, but works tirelessly for people).
Value is being true to your word, working.
– Is the lamplighter a happy man, according to the Little Prince? Why?
Fifth lesson: To be a beacon for people all your life - this is a person’s happiness
6) fat, traveler, account, office, certificates, student (Planet Geographer).
For a geographer, the value is the accumulation of knowledge that no one else needs.
– Is this a real scientist?
Lesson six: You can’t explore the world without leaving your office .
– We found out that all the planets visited by the Little Prince have common features. Which?
First of all, they don't have a name. Each asteroid has its own number - from 325 to 330 - like apartments in a multi-story building. In my opinion, this is a hint that in the modern world people live in neighboring apartments, as if on different planets. The life of the inhabitants of asteroids is meaningless, so they do not deserve a good name for their home.
Secondly, planets are very small. Thirdly, each of them is inhabited by one person – an adult. Probably, the author wanted to draw our attention to the qualities of a person living on a particular planet, or rather, to one quality that prevails in every inhabitant. The character trait is clearly exaggerated and is one of human vices and sins.
2) Analysis of a fairy tale.
Working with fragments of a fairy tale (The Little Prince on Planet Earth)
– Does the Little Prince accept or reject the value of the inhabitants of these planets? (Having visited six planets, the Little Prince rejects false ideas about happiness, duty, and power).
Why doesn't the Little Prince stay on these planets?
(The Little Prince becomes acquainted with human shortcomings at their highest level. But the child’s soul, pure and innocent, does not understand them and does not accept them).
– Having visited 6 planets, the Little Prince goes to planet Earth.
“The Earth is not an easy planet! There are about two billion adults there.”
– Where does the Little Prince end up? (to the desert).
– Why do you think it was in the desert? (The little prince is not yet ready to meet the Man - he has only learned bad things about him, he may get confused among a large number of people.)
Who does the Little Prince meet on Earth? (snake).
– What lesson does the snake teach the Little Prince? (“It’s also lonely among people.”)
Who else does the little traveler meet on planet Earth? (roses, fox)
– The little prince, seeing a garden with numerous roses, fell into the grass and cried? Why? (He was disappointed in his rose. This means that Rose was deceiving him, claiming that she was the one and only).
- Find this moment in the text. What does the Little Prince say to the roses? (Chapter XX). (“I imagined that I owned the only flower in the world, which no one else had anywhere, and it was a very ordinary rose. All I had was a simple rose and three volcanoes that were knee-high, and then only one one of them went out and, perhaps, forever... what kind of prince am I after that..." He lay down in the grass and began to cry.)
Who appears before the prince in a difficult moment of disappointment?
3) Watch the video “The Little Prince and the Fox”
– What lessons does the Fox teach the Little Prince?
– What is the most important thing in friendship and love, according to Fox? (To have friends, you need to give them your soul, give them the most precious thing - your time).“Your Rose is so dear to you because you gave her your days.”
– Do you guys always find time for your friends? Each person is responsible not only for his own destiny, but also for those close to him.
– What did the Little Prince understand during his journey? How did your attitude towards roses change after Fox’s lessons? Find in the text (Chapter XXI). - “You are not at all like my rose,” he told them. - You are nothing yet. No one has tamed you, and you have not tamed anyone. This is how my Fox used to be. He was no different from a hundred thousand other foxes. But I became friends with him, and now he is the only one in the whole world.
Roses were very embarrassed.
- “You are beautiful, but empty,” continued the Little Prince. - I won’t want to die for your sake. Of course, a random passerby, looking at my rose, will say that it is exactly the same as you. But she alone is dearer to me than all of you. After all, it was her, not you, that I watered every day. He covered her, not you, with a glass cover. He blocked it with a screen, protecting it from the wind. I killed caterpillars for her, leaving only two or three so that the butterflies hatched. I listened to how she complained and how she boasted, I listened to her even when she fell silent. She is mine.
– And the Little Prince decides to return home.
IV. Consolidation of the studied material.
1) Rabot with lesson epigraph
Let's return to the phrase of A. Exupery« Every person has their own stars»
Let's talk about the stars. What do they mean to the Little Prince? Why do the stars shine? ( Hope; So that sooner or later everyone can find their star).
– IN from an excerpt from chapter XXVI: “Every person has his own stars. For those who wander, they show the way. For others, they are just little lights. For scientists, they are like a problem that needs to be solved. For my businessman they are gold. But for all these people the stars are mute. And you will have very special stars... - You will look at the sky at night, and there will be such a star, where I live, where I laugh, - and you will hear that all the stars are laughing. You will have stars who know how to laugh! And he laughed himself."
– What do the stars symbolize? (striving for something, dreaming about something).
– Indeed, despite the fact that each person has his own dreams, plans, his own understanding of life, “all the people around us, everywhere and everywhere, strive for the same thing...” - towards their stars. strive to be understood, happy, needed, loved.
2) Practical work
Today you and I traveled a lot together with the Little Prince, thinking about real and imaginary values.
I propose to do practical work and derive a formula for good. For me, the formula for good is this.
I value, first of all, mercy, love, understanding, care, trust, loyalty, devotion, responsibility.
And you try to derive your own formula for good. You need to write on the star those concepts that, in your opinion, are suitable for completing this task. (Read out a few examples)
– This is your guiding star that will help you in life. She will guide you, she will show you the way. Let this path be the road of kindness, mercy, love, understanding.
– Tell me, has the Little Prince found his way to the stars? (Found, he realized that the most important thing for him was a sense of responsibility, care, friendship, so he dreamed of returning to his rose).
V.Summarizing. Reflection.
1. Let's return to the questions posed at the beginning of the lesson.
– Why does a person live?
– What is true happiness?
– What does true friendship and true love mean?
2. Let's dream up a little. Imagine that you have met one of the heroes of a fairy tale. What would you tell him?
I hope that when you become adults, you will not forget the precepts of the Wise Fox and the commandments of the Little Prince.
When parting with your loved ones, you will remember that you are responsible for everyone you have tamed, that only with your heart can you feel love, that a person can face loneliness even among a crowd.
Two meanings in life - internal and external
The external one has family, business, success;
And the inner one is unclear and unearthly -
Everyone is responsible for everyone.
VI. Homework.
Write a letter to the Little Prince.
Explain any of the aphorisms that you liked.
There are works that can be read and reread many times. The book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “The Little Prince” is one of these. Since its first edition in 1943, it has been one of the most widely read in the world. Its author, a French pilot and writer, is an adult who remains a child at heart. The book “The Little Prince” tells about an extraordinary meeting between a pilot (due to engine problems, the pilot had to land the plane in the desert) with the Little Prince, a guest from another planet. This work is included in the 6th grade literature program.
“The Little Prince” is a story in form and a fairy tale in plot, a story in a language that everyone can understand about serious and eternal issues: love, friendship, loyalty and responsibility for loved ones. In order to understand the meaning and main idea of the story, we suggest reading a summary of “The Little Prince” chapter by chapter online.
Main characters
Narrator- a pilot who made an emergency landing in the Sahara, an adult who remained a child at heart.
A little prince- a boy who lives on a small planet and one day goes on a journey. He meets different adults who seem so strange - he himself sees the world completely differently.
Other characters
Rose– the favorite flower of the Little Prince, a capricious and proud creature.
King– a ruler for whom the main thing in life is power. He considers all people his subjects.
Ambitious- an inhabitant of one of the planets, who considers himself the best, smartest and richest, and all people as his admirers.
Drunkard- an adult who drinks, trying to forget that he is ashamed of what he drinks.
Business man- a person who constantly counts the stars. He thinks that it is enough to be the first to call himself the owner of the stars in order to really be one.
Lamplighter- an inhabitant of the smallest planet that the Little Prince visited, lights and extinguishes his lantern every second.
Geographer- a scientist who knows nothing about his beautiful planet, because he never leaves his office. Records travelers' stories.
Snake- the first living creature seen by the Little Prince on Earth. It seems to him that the snake speaks in riddles. Offers to help the boy when he starts missing his home.
Fox- a friend who revealed to the Little Prince many secrets of life. The fox teaches him friendship and love.
Chapter 1
As a child, the narrator drew his first picture: a boa constrictor that swallowed an elephant. The adults who saw the drawing decided that it depicted a hat and advised the boy to study geography and other sciences instead of drawing. Because of this, the child lost faith in himself.
He chose the profession of a pilot and flew around almost the whole world. He dated various adults. As soon as it seemed that the person spoke “the same language” with him, he showed him his childhood drawing - the same one with a boa constrictor and an elephant - but everyone, without exception, saw only a hat in the drawing. And then the narrator had no choice but to talk with them about politics, ties and other things that they lived by. There was no one to talk heart to heart with.
Chapter 2
So the narrator lived alone until one day a breakdown in the engine forced him to land the plane in the desert. At dawn, the sleeping pilot was awakened by a little man who had come from nowhere. He asked me to draw him a lamb. The hero drew the only picture he could. Imagine his amazement when the boy exclaimed that he did not need an elephant in a boa constrictor!
Trying over and over again to draw the kind of lamb the kid was waiting for, the pilot lost patience and drew a box. The kid was very pleased - after all, he was able to see his lamb there.
This was the narrator’s acquaintance with the Little Prince.
Chapters 3-4
The kid asked many questions, but when the pilot asked about himself, he pretended not to hear. From the scraps of information received, it became clear that the child was from another planet, and this planet was very small. After thinking, the pilot decided that his home was asteroid B612, seen through a telescope only once - it was so small.
Chapter 5
Little by little the pilot learned something about the life of the Little Prince. So, one day it became known that there were also troubles in the baby’s house. Among the plants, baobabs are often found. If you do not distinguish their sprouts from others in time and do not weed them out, they will quickly destroy the planet, tearing it apart with their roots.
To prevent this from happening, the Little Prince had a firm rule: “Get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.”
Chapter 6
Gradually it became clear that the baby was often sad on his planet. If “it becomes very sad, it’s good to watch the sun go down,” said the Little Prince. There was a day when the boy looked at the sky more than forty times...
Chapter 7
On the fifth day of their acquaintance, the pilot learned the secret of the Little Prince. On his planet there lived an extraordinary flower, which no one else in the world had. He was afraid that someday the lamb that destroys the baobab sprouts would eat his favorite plant.
Chapter 8
Soon the narrator learned more about the flower. The Little Prince once had a tiny sprout, unlike other flowers. Over time, a bud grew on it, which did not open for a long time. When all the petals opened, the baby saw with admiration a real beauty. She turned out to have a difficult character: the guest was a subtle and proud person. The boy, who took everything the beauty said to heart, felt unhappy and decided to run away and go on a journey.
Telling the story about the flower, the Kid already understood that “it was necessary to judge not by words, but by deeds” - after all, the beauty filled the planet with fragrance, but he did not know how to enjoy this and “did not know how to love.”
Chapter 9
Before the trip, the boy carefully cleaned his planet. When he said goodbye to his beautiful guest, she suddenly asked for forgiveness, wished him happiness and admitted that she loved the Little Prince.
Chapters 10-11
There were several asteroids very close to the baby’s planet, he decided to go there and learn something.
On the first planet there lived a king. The monarch gave only feasible orders. For this reason, it was necessary to wait for the exact time to see the sun set. The little prince became bored - he needed to see the sunset whenever he wanted, at the call of his heart.
On the second planet there lived an ambitious man who thought that everyone admired him. The ambitious man's desire to be smarter, more beautiful and richer than everyone else seemed strange to the boy.
Chapters 12-13
The third planet belonged to a drunkard. The little prince was perplexed to hear that he drank to forget how ashamed he was of drinking.
The owner of the fourth planet was a business man. He was always busy: counting the stars in the confidence that he owned them. According to the hero, there was no benefit from him.
Chapters 14-15
On the smallest planet there lived a lamplighter who lit and extinguished the lantern every moment. His occupation was useful, according to the kid, because the lamplighter thought not only about himself.
The hero also visited the geographer’s planet. The scientist wrote down the stories of travelers, but he himself had never seen seas, deserts or cities.
Chapters 16-17
The seventh planet on which the Little Prince found himself was Earth, and it was huge.
At first, the baby saw no one on the planet except the snake. From her he learned that not only in the desert, but also among people it can also be lonely. The snake promised to help him on the day when the boy became sad about his home.
Chapter 18
While wandering through the desert, the hero met a small, unattractive flower. The flower did not know where to look for people - in his entire life he had seen only a few of them and thought that they were carried by the wind, because people did not have roots.
Chapter 19
Having climbed a mountain along the way, the Little Prince hoped to see the whole Earth and all the people. But instead I saw only rocks and heard an echo. "Strange planet!" - the kid decided, and he felt sad.
Chapter 20
One day the little hero saw a garden with many roses. They looked like his beauty, and the baby stopped, amazed. It turned out that his flower is not the only one in the world and not special at all. It was painful to think about it, he sat down in the grass and cried.
Chapter 21
At that moment the Fox appeared. The little prince was going to make friends, but it turned out that the animal had to be tamed first. Then “we will need each other... My life will be illuminated as if by the sun,” said the Fox.
The fox taught the baby that “you can only learn those things that you tame,” and “to tame, you need to be patient.” He revealed an important secret to the boy: “Only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the main thing with your eyes” and asked to remember the law: “you are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed.” The little prince understood: the beautiful rose is more valuable than anything, he gave her all his time and energy, and he is responsible for the rose - after all, he tamed it.
Chapter 22
Walking further, the Little Prince met a switchman who was sorting passengers. The kid asked him where people go and why, what are they looking for? No one knew the answer, and the hero decided that “only children know what they are looking for.”
Chapter 23
Then the boy saw a merchant who was selling improved pills. Thanks to this, you could save almost an hour a week; you take one pill and you don’t have to drink for a week. If the baby had so many free minutes, he would simply go to a living spring...
Chapter 24
The pilot drank the last of his water. Together, a boy and an adult set off on a journey in search of a well. When the baby was tired, he was consoled by the thought that somewhere there was his flower, and the desert was beautiful because springs were hidden in it. After the baby’s words about the desert, the narrator realized what kind of mysterious light he saw over the sands: “Whether it’s a house, the stars or the desert, the most beautiful thing about them is what you can’t see with your eyes.”
At dawn, the pilot with the boy in his arms reached the well.
Chapter 25
The pilot gave the baby something to drink. The water was “like a gift to the heart,” it was “born from a long journey under the stars, from the creaking of a gate, from the efforts of hands.”
Now the friends spoke the same language and both knew that very little was needed to be happy.
The main character realized that the baby wanted to return home.
Chapter 26
Having repaired the engine, the pilot returned to the well the next evening and saw that the Little Prince was talking to the snake. The pilot became very scared for the baby. After being told that he would be able to return home at night and protect the rose, the boy became very serious. He promised to give his adult friend special stars. “Every person has his own stars” - the pilot’s stars will be able to laugh.
Very soon a snake flashed near the Little Prince, biting him, and he fell silently and slowly.
Chapter 27
The pilot never told anyone about the Little Prince. He knew that the baby had returned to his home, because the next morning he was not on the sand. And now the narrator loves to watch and listen to the stars; they either laugh quietly or cry.
Conclusion
Talking about the hero's journey, the author talks to us about eternal human values, about the importance of preserving childlike purity and naivety in life, about the real perception of the world. Having studied a brief retelling of “The Little Prince”, having become acquainted with the plot and characters, you can move on: read the full text and feel the life-affirming beginning of the fairy tale, where the adult hero began to hear the stars and see the world in a new way.
Test on the story
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Retelling rating
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On the second planet there lived an ambitious man.
Oh, here comes the admirer! - he exclaimed, seeing the Little Prince from afar.
After all, vain people think that everyone admires them.
“Good afternoon,” said the Little Prince. - What a funny hat you have.
“This is to bow,” explained the ambitious man. - To bow when they greet me. Unfortunately, no one comes here.
How's that? - said the Little Prince: he didn’t understand anything.
“Clap your hands,” the ambitious man told him.
The little prince clapped his hands. The ambitious man took off his hat and bowed modestly.
“It’s more fun here than at the old king’s,” thought the Little Prince. And he started clapping his hands again. And the ambitious man began to bow again, taking off his hat.
So the same thing was repeated for about five minutes in a row, and the Little Prince got bored with it.
What needs to be done to make the hat fall off? - he asked.
But the ambitious man did not hear. Vain people are deaf to everything except praise.
Are you really my enthusiastic admirer? - he asked the little prince.
But there is no one else on your planet!
Well, give me pleasure, admire me anyway!
“I admire it,” said the Little Prince, shrugging slightly, “but what joy does that give you?”
And he ran away from the ambitious man.
“Really, adults are very strange people,” he thought innocently, setting off on his way.
On the next planet there lived a drunkard. The little prince stayed with him for only a short time, but after that he felt very sad.
When he appeared on this planet, the drunkard sat silently and looked at the hordes of bottles lined up in front of him - empty and full.
What are you doing? - asked the little prince.
“I drink,” the drunkard answered gloomily.
To forget.
What to forget? - asked the Little Prince; he felt sorry for the drunkard.
“I want to forget that I’m ashamed,” the drunkard admitted and hung his head.
Why are you ashamed? - asked the Little Prince, he really wanted to help the poor guy.
I'm ashamed to drink! - explained the drunkard, and it was impossible to get another word out of him.
“Yes, really, adults are very, very strange people,” he thought as he continued on his way.
The fourth planet belonged to a business man. He was so busy that when the Little Prince appeared he didn’t even raise his head.
“Good afternoon,” the Little Prince told him. - Your cigarette has gone out.
Three and two are five. Five and seven are twelve. Twelve and three are fifteen. Good afternoon. Fifteen and seven - twenty-two. Twenty two and six - twenty eight. There is no time to strike a match. Twenty six and five - thirty one. Ugh! The total, therefore, is five hundred one million six hundred twenty two thousand seven hundred thirty one.
Five hundred million of what?
A? Are you still here? Five hundred million... I don’t know what... I have so much work to do! I am a serious person, I have no time for chatter! Two and five - seven...
Five hundred million of what? - repeated the Little Prince: having asked about something, he did not calm down until he received an answer.
The business man raised his head.
I have been living on this planet for fifty-four years, and in all that time I have only been disturbed three times. For the first time, twenty-two years ago, a cockchafer flew towards me from somewhere. He made a terrible noise, and then I made four mistakes in addition. The second time, eleven years ago, I had an attack of rheumatism. From a sedentary lifestyle. I have no time to walk around. I'm a serious person.
