preview

The Little Prince Analysis

Decent Essays

Uncountable hours have been spent on searching for the best way to use the time we have on the Earth and to live our lives to the fullest. Nevertheless, it seems that no ones has found the perfect answer. Throughout The Little Prince (1943), Antoine de Saint Exupery gives the reader a look on how society views time. In particular, de Saint Exupery offers up a critique on how many individuals value saving time and efficiency over anything else. The Little Prince is able to see this first hand through his various interactions with grownups along his journey. The novella is able to convey the fact that society has become overly consumed with the pursuit of efficiency, while some people become enthralled with a task at hand, they would not “waste time” to enjoy other things in life that may be more meaningful. However, taking your time is often more rewarding than rushing in an attempt to save time. It seems that nowadays many people live by the saying “time is money” and spend all their time fully dedicated to work. The line separating an individual's work and life has become essentially blurred and it is not uncommon to have people wholly wrapped up with work, having no time for anything unrelated. Although de Saint Exupery wrote the little prince in 1943, his work is very much relevant today. On the Little Prince’s journey across planets he meets two characters, the businessman and the geographer, both demonstrating the unbalanced relationship between work and time. The businessman is so devoted in his work that he barely acknowledges the Little Prince. He deems that time not spent working is such a waste that he only talks to the Little Prince in between his work. The businessman claims he only has time to be “concerned about matters of consequence” (The Little Prince) 53, which is not disparate from how many, in the real world, view their jobs to be essential, thus spending less time doing other things. Likewise, the geographer is consumed by his work and considers the time spend working in essence invaluable. He claims that “geographers is much too important to go loafing about” (The Little Prince) 64, thus he does not do any exploring. Ironically this leaves the geographer with nothing to

Get Access