Antoine de Saint-Exupery "The Little Prince": description, characters, analysis of the work. What characterizes The Little Prince? What a little prince in character

"The Little Prince" is rightfully considered one of the masterpieces of world literature. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of this amazing philosophical parable, dressed in the form of a fairy tale, masterfully conveyed the ideas of universal human truths, once again recalling humanity, kindness and love.

The author managed to realize his plan through the image of the main character - the Little Prince. It was no coincidence that the main character was portrayed as a child, since it is the child’s perception of the world, in the author’s opinion, that fits most harmoniously into the model of the Universe. A child, who does not know much, nevertheless sometimes has greater wisdom and insight than most adults. The author emphasizes this idea with the Little Prince’s repeated phrases “Adults are strange people.”

The image of the Little Prince is an ideal image of the human soul. He embodies all the best traits that can be inherent in a person - openness, purity, sublimity above the material, wisdom. At the same time, the Little Prince is lonely. His planet is so small that there is barely enough room for anyone else. But in fact, the planet of the Little Prince is a symbol of the inner world of man. From this position, the words of the Little Prince take on special meaning: “There is such a firm rule. Get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.” They characterize the prince as a person capable of purifying his thoughts and putting things in order, primarily in his soul.

This thin, lonely, vulnerable and dreamy child, who loves to watch sunsets, worries about the fate of a capricious flower and believes that he still has a lot to learn, truly opens up after learning his love for Rose and friendship with the Fox. It was they who brought into his soul that necessary touch of the ability to live for another, caring for him and not demanding anything in return, which made his already pure soul the quintessence of an ideal human essence, which each of us should strive for. After all, only love and devotion can cure loneliness and help life find meaning.

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“The Little Prince”, the characteristics of the main character from Exupéry’s story are included in this article.

“The Little Prince” characteristics of the main character

The Little Prince is the main character of the fairy tale, who arrives from his little planet to Earth. Before this year, a long journey took place on the various planets themselves, which were inhabited by “wonderful adults.” The Little Prince has his own light, and the connection with the light of grown-ups gives rise to his mass of nutrition and intelligence. The pilot who suffered an accident was troubleshooting problems in the aircraft. On the Svitanka, the pilot, having dozed off, hears the thin voice of a child: “Be kind... paint me a little lamb!” So it’s common for the reader to know the Little Prince, who appeared in a miraculous manner in the middle of Sahari’s sands.

Having earned the price of the Little Prince, having squabbled with their trio, the hawks with the king, the ambitious, the drunkard, the businesswoman, the geographer - the only bastards of small planets - allowed the author to write a draft: “So, the wonderful people have grown up ! The ladies seem respectful to them, and they don’t give off a headache. Instead of decorating your home, cultivating your garden, your planet, waging wars, tyrannizing other people, and drying your guts with stupid numbers, and amusing yourself with pitiful trash, and depicting your soul This and the greediness of the beauty of comings and goings, fields and searches. No, that’s not how you should live! “The little prince knows no one on the planets who could be his friend. However, the image of the flight attendant clearly differs from other images in that he is faithful to his outfit. And this is faithfulness, although it is also foolish, but it is reliable.

The little prince meets with the Fox on Earth and gradually tames him. They become friends, but sometimes they fall apart. The words of the Fox sound like a wise commandment: “... you will once again be responsible for everyone you have tamed. You are the most respected for your trojan.” The dearest in his life for the Little Prince are the Fox and the Trojans he abandoned, so they are the only ones in the world. The appearance of the Little Prince in the desert, his appearance to the little boy who had suffered an accident, is more symbolic than a warning to an adult about his “inner fatherlandism”, and his “death”, a tragedy and grief, we say, is the tragedy of an adult, in the soul what a gyne child. website The child herself embodies in herself everything that is good, pure, and beautiful.

Therefore, the writer speaks with bitterness about those who, when grown up, separated from childhood, often forget about eternal, imperishable values; the stench is stirred up by important, in their opinion, speeches and conduct in a tedious, dull manner. But people must live differently, they need clean water from deep wells, they need bells of stars in the night sky. And to the fact that Saint-Exupéry does not sing that he should indulge in converting people from his own - they have power! - It’s true, the Cossack is so stupid.

The image of the Little Prince is an ideal image of the human soul. Vine embodies all the best qualities that ordinary people can possess – openness, purity, sublimity above the material, wisdom. At the same time, the Little Prince is selfish. This planet is so small that it’s unlikely to find a place for anyone else. website And in fact, the planet of the Little Prince is a symbol of the inner world of a person. From this position, the words of the Little Prince come to a special sense: “The rule is so firm. Get up, get in, get yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.” The stench characterizes the prince as a man dedicated to purifying his thoughts and putting things in order before his soul.

This thin, self-sufficient, vulnerable and joyful child, who loves to watch the sunset, worries about the share of a moist little flower and believes that she still needs to know so much, is rightly revealed, having known love before Troy and friendship with Fox. They themselves brought into his soul that necessary touch of authenticity of living for another, listening to something new and not insisting on anything, which gave his already pure soul the quintessence of the ideal human essence, until what a trace of damage to the skin of us. Even just love and dedication contribute to self-esteem and help you find the sense of life.

The image of the Little Prince. The Little Prince is a symbol of a person - a wanderer in the universe, looking for the hidden meaning of things and his own life. The soul of the Little Prince is not shackled by the ice of indifference and deadness. Therefore, a true vision of the world is revealed to him: he learns the value of true friendship, love and beauty. This is the theme of the “vigilance” of the heart, the ability to “see” with the heart, to understand without words. The little prince does not immediately comprehend this wisdom. He leaves his own planet, not knowing that what he will look for on different planets will be so close - on his home planet. The little prince is a man of few words - he says very little about himself and his planet. Only little by little, from random, casually dropped words, does the pilot learn that the baby has arrived from a distant planet, “which is the size of a house” and is called asteroid B-612. The little prince tells the pilot about how he is at war with the baobab trees, which take such deep and strong roots that they can tear apart his little planet. You need to weed out the first shoots, otherwise it will be too late, “this is a very boring job.” But he has a “firm rule”: “...get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.” People must take care of the purity and beauty of their planet, together protect and decorate it, and prevent all living things from perishing. The little prince from Saint-Exupery's fairy tale cannot imagine his life without the love of gentle sunsets, without the sun. “I once saw the sun set forty-three times in one day!” - he says to the pilot. And a little later he adds: “You know... when it becomes very sad, it’s good to watch the sun go down...” The child feels like a part of the natural world, and he calls on adults to unite with it. The kid is active and hardworking. Every morning he watered Rose, talked with her, cleaned the three volcanoes on his planet so that they would give more heat, pulled out weeds... And yet he felt very lonely. In search of friends, in the hope of finding true love, he sets off on his journey through alien worlds. He is looking for people in the endless desert that surrounds him, because in communication with them he hopes to understand himself and the world around him, to gain the experience that he so lacked. Visiting six planets in succession, the Little Prince on each of them encounters a certain life phenomenon embodied in the inhabitants of these planets: power, vanity, drunkenness, pseudo-learning... The images of the heroes of A. Saint-Exupery's fairy tale “The Little Prince” have their own prototypes. The image of the Little Prince is both deeply autobiographical and, as it were, removed from the adult author-pilot. He was born out of longing for little Tonio, who was dying within himself - a descendant of an impoverished noble family, who was called in the family “Sun King” for his blond (at first) hair, and in college was nicknamed Lunatic for his habit of looking at the starry sky for a long time. The phrase “The Little Prince” itself appears, as you probably noticed, in “Planet of People” (like many other images and thoughts). And in 1940, in between battles with the Nazis Exupery I often drew a boy on a piece of paper - sometimes winged, sometimes riding on a cloud. Gradually, the wings will be replaced by a long scarf (which, by the way, the author himself wore), and the cloud will become asteroid B-612.

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The image of the Little Prince. The Little Prince is a symbol of a person - a wanderer in the universe, looking for the hidden meaning of things and his own life. The soul of the Little Prince is not shackled by the ice of indifference and deadness. Therefore, a true vision of the world is revealed to him: he learns the value of true friendship, love and beauty. This is the theme of the “vigilance” of the heart, the ability to “see” with the heart, to understand without words. The little prince does not immediately comprehend this wisdom. He leaves his own planet, not knowing that what he will look for on different planets will be so close - on his home planet. The little prince is a man of few words - he says very little about himself and his planet. Only little by little, from random, casually dropped words, does the pilot learn that the baby has arrived from a distant planet, “which is the size of a house” and is called asteroid B-612. The little prince tells the pilot about how he is at war with the baobab trees, which take such deep and strong roots that they can tear apart his little planet. You need to weed out the first shoots, otherwise it will be too late, “this is a very boring job.” But he has a “firm rule”: “...get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.” People must take care of the purity and beauty of their planet, together protect and decorate it, and prevent all living things from perishing. The little prince from Saint-Exupery's fairy tale cannot imagine his life without the love of gentle sunsets, without the sun. “I once saw the sun set forty-three times in one day!” - he says to the pilot. And a little later he adds: “You know... when it becomes very sad, it’s good to watch the sun go down...” The child feels like a part of the natural world, and he calls on adults to unite with it. The kid is active and hardworking. Every morning he watered Rose, talked with her, cleaned the three volcanoes on his planet so that they would give more heat, pulled out weeds... And yet he felt very lonely. In search of friends, in the hope of finding true love, he sets off on his journey through alien worlds. He is looking for people in the endless desert that surrounds him, because in communication with them he hopes to understand himself and the world around him, to gain the experience that he so lacked. Visiting six planets in succession, the Little Prince on each of them encounters a certain life phenomenon embodied in the inhabitants of these planets: power, vanity, drunkenness, pseudo-learning... The images of the heroes of A. Saint-Exupery's fairy tale “The Little Prince” have their own prototypes. The image of the Little Prince is both deeply autobiographical and, as it were, removed from the adult author-pilot. He was born out of longing for little Tonio, who was dying within himself - a descendant of an impoverished noble family, who was called in the family “Sun King” for his blond (at first) hair, and in college was nicknamed Lunatic for his habit of looking at the starry sky for a long time. The phrase “The Little Prince” itself appears, as you probably noticed, in “Planet of People” (like many other images and thoughts). And in 1940, in between battles with the NazisExuperyI often drew a boy on a piece of paper - sometimes winged, sometimes riding on a cloud. Gradually, the wings will be replaced by a long scarf (which, by the way, the author himself wore), and the cloud will become an asteroid

If we discard dry calculations, then the description of “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry can be summed up in one word - miracle.

The fairy tale's literary roots lie in a wandering plot about a rejected prince, and its emotional roots lie in a child's view of the world.

(Watercolor illustrations made by Saint-Exupéry, without which a book simply cannot be published, since they and the book form a single whole fairy tale)

History of creation

The image of a pensive boy first appears in the form of a drawing in the notes of a French military pilot in 1940. Later, the author organically wove his own sketches into the body of the work, changing his view of illustration as such.

The original image crystallized into a fairy tale by 1943. At that time, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry lived in New York. Bitterness from the inability to share the fate of comrades fighting in Africa and longing for beloved France seeped into the text. There were no problems with the publication, and in the same year American readers became acquainted with The Little Prince, however, they received it coolly.

Along with the English translation, the original in French was also published. The book reached French publishers only three years later, in 1946, two years after the death of the aviator. The Russian-language version of the work appeared in 1958. And now “The Little Prince” has almost the largest number of translations - there are its publications in 160 languages ​​(including Zulu and Aramaic). Total sales exceeded 80 million copies.

Description of the work

The storyline is built around the travels of the Little Prince from the tiny planet B-162. And gradually his journey becomes not so much an actual movement from planet to planet, but rather a road to understanding life and the world.

Wanting to learn something new, the Prince leaves his asteroid with three volcanoes and one favorite rose. On the way he meets many symbolic characters:

• A ruler convinced of his power over all the stars;
• An ambitious person seeking admiration for himself;
• A drunkard drowning in drink, shame from addiction;
• A business man constantly busy counting the stars;
• the diligent Lamplighter, who lights and extinguishes his lantern every minute;
• A geographer who never left his planet.

These characters, along with the rose garden, the switchman and others, represent the world of modern society, burdened with conventions and responsibilities.

On the advice of the latter, the boy goes to Earth, where in the desert he meets the crashed pilot, the Fox, the Snake and other characters. This is where his journey through the planets ends and his knowledge of the world begins.

Main characters

The main character of a literary fairy tale has childish spontaneity and directness of judgment, supported (but not clouded) by the experience of an adult. Because of this, his actions paradoxically combine responsibility (careful care of the planet) and spontaneity (sudden departure on a trip). In the work, he is an image of a correct way of life, not littered with conventions, which fills it with meaning.

Pilot

The entire story is told from his perspective. He has similarities both with the writer himself and with the Little Prince. The pilot is an adult, but he instantly finds a common language with the little hero. In the lonely desert, he displays the normal human reaction - he is angry because of problems with engine repairs, he is afraid of dying of thirst. But it reminds him of childhood personality traits that should not be forgotten even in the harshest conditions.

Fox

This image has an impressive semantic load. Tired of the monotony of life, the Fox wants to find affection. By taming it, it shows the Prince the essence of affection. The boy understands and accepts this lesson and finally understands the nature of the relationship with his Rose. The fox is a symbol of understanding the nature of affection and trust.

Rose

A weak, but beautiful and temperamental flower, which has only four thorns to protect it from the dangers of this world. Undoubtedly, the prototype of the flower was the writer’s hot-tempered wife, Consuelo. The rose represents the inconsistency and power of love.

Snake

The second key for the character's storyline. She, like the biblical asp, offers the Prince a way to return to his beloved Rose with the help of a fatal bite. Longing for the flower, the prince agrees. The snake puts an end to his journey. But whether this point was a real return home or something else, the reader will have to decide. In the fairy tale, the Snake symbolizes deceit and temptation.

Analysis of the work

The genre of “The Little Prince” is a literary fairy tale. There are all the signs: fantastic characters and their wonderful actions, a social and pedagogical message. However, there is also a philosophical context that refers to the traditions of Voltaire. Together with the attitude towards the problems of death, love, and responsibility, which is uncharacteristic of fairy tales, this allows us to classify the work as a parable.

Events in the fairy tale, like most parables, have some cyclicity. At the starting point, the hero is presented as is, then the development of events leads to a climax, after which “everything returns to normal,” but with a philosophical, ethical or moral load. This happens in The Little Prince, when the main character decides to return to his “tamed” Rose.

From an artistic point of view, the text is filled with simple and understandable images. Mystical imagery, together with simplicity of presentation, allows the author to naturally move from a specific image to a concept, an idea. The text is generously sprinkled with bright epithets and paradoxical semantic constructions.

One cannot fail to note the special nostalgic tone of the tale. Thanks to artistic techniques, adults see in a fairy tale a conversation with a good old friend, and children get an idea of ​​what kind of world surrounds them, described in simple and figurative language. In many ways, The Little Prince owes its popularity to these factors.