For me, as for any reader, any book begins with the title. Once I saw the book “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the library, I definitely wanted to read it, easily and quickly, like all the fairy tales about Cinderellas, princes and magical kingdoms.

But the reading turned out to be not as easy as I expected. I often put the book aside and thought about what I had read. And after the first reading, instead of joyful calm, as usually happens after any fairy tale, I felt some kind of anxiety. I was faced with many questions.

For whom is this fairy tale written - for children or adults?

What is its meaning? What does she teach?

And then I turned to the literature teacher, after consulting, we began to analyze the text. We looked for answers to questions and tried to highlight the main thing for ourselves.

This is what we got.

We compared two worlds: the world of children, represented by the images of six-year-old Exupery and the little prince, and the world of adult fairy tale heroes.

We found epithets-definitions that characterize the heroes, identified their occupation, determined their life credo and the attitude of the Little Prince towards them, that is, a child’s view of the life of adults.

After comparing and analyzing everything, we made conclusions.

I also tried to compare the adults in the fairy tale with the people around me.

Already at the very beginning of the fairy tale, in dedicating the work to his friend Leon Vert, Exupery unobtrusively talks about the problem that will become the main one in the fairy tale. Dedicating the book to an adult, he looks for excuses, saying about him that he is “his best friend,” and it is no coincidence that he adds: “when he was little.” Already here is the purpose of creating a fairy tale - to remind adults that they “were children first.”

From the very beginning of the work, describing the painful misunderstanding on the part of adults for him, a six-year-old child, Exupery conveys to us his feeling of loneliness, which made him akin to his hero. This feeling is no coincidence. “The Little Prince” was written by Exupery in the USA in 1942, far from his homeland occupied in those years and his friend living there. The narrator-pilot also yearns, just as his Little Prince yearns for his planet and his beloved rose.

The first disappointment that befell Exupery happened at the age of 6. The adults “helped” him lose faith in himself, because “they don’t understand anything themselves” and “it’s very tiring to endlessly explain and explain everything to them.” Having joined the world of adults and its concepts, he still remained alone. And then one day, for the first time in many years, he finally meets a baby with whom he “had to have a heart-to-heart talk.” What connected these two souls? A humanistic understanding of the world, the ability to see beauty, see the meaning of life and appreciate it.

Having analyzed the meeting of the pilot with the Little Prince and their conversation, comparing the perception of the world by their souls, I found common ground:

Exupery The Little Prince

Soul kinship

Loneliness;

Homesickness;

Drawings;

Ability to fly;

Kinship with the sky;

They laugh at numbers and numbers;

Caring for the world (“Beware of the baobabs!”);

Attitude to the world of adults;

Admiration for the beauty of nature.

On the advice of the Geographer, the Little Prince sets off on a journey to planet Earth, which has “a good reputation.” But on this planet with a “good reputation” there are one hundred and eleven kings, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven and a half million drunkards, three hundred and eleven million ambitious people, that is, the number of “strange adults” doing useless things has been multiplied millions of times. Although they do not take up much space on Earth. They seem majestic to themselves, like baobabs, which in fact, like weeds, can destroy the planet.

And the animal world is concerned about this. It is no coincidence that the Little Prince ends up in the desert on planet earth. This is a warning to the entire adult world of ambitious people and business people: “Don’t turn the planet into a lonely desert.” And this warning is not accidental, since by comparing the life truths of the Little Prince and adults, we can see the following picture:

The Little Prince Adults

1. Got up in the morning, washed, put myself in order - and immediately bring it to 1. They must be obeyed without question.

order your planet. 2. They are ashamed to drink.

2. When it becomes very sad, it’s good to watch the sun set 3. They never understand anything themselves, they always need to explain everything.

(i.e. admire the beauty of nature). 4. You can’t have a heart-to-heart talk with them.

3. You are forever responsible for those you have tamed (flower, Fox). 5. When they want to make a joke, sometimes they will inevitably lie.

4. Only the heart is vigilant. You can't see the most important thing with your eyes.

5. You should never listen to what flowers say. You just have to look at them and breathe in their scent.

6. When you carefully clean volcanoes, they burn evenly and quietly, without any eruptions. A volcanic eruption is like a fire in a chimney.

Knowledge of the world of adults living on Earth comes to the Little Prince through acquaintance with the inhabitants of the planet.

1. It’s lonely among them. (Snake)

2. They are carried by the wind. They have no roots, which is very inconvenient. (Flower)

3. They have no imagination. They only repeat what you tell them. (Echo).

4. People don't have enough time to learn anything. (Fox)

5. They don't want anything. “It’s good where we are not.” Only children know what they are looking for. (Switchman)

6. Due to unnecessary savings, we have forgotten how to enjoy life. (Dealer)

7. People get on fast trains, but they no longer understand what they are looking for. Therefore, they do not know peace, they rush in one direction, then in the other. (this is already the conclusion of the Little Prince).

Images of Flower and Snake. There are two female images in the fairy tale - the Flower and the Snake. And in these images the world of a woman is embodied: a beloved woman, a coquette and a wise woman-mother who solves all riddles.

The fairy tale describes with particular tenderness the relationship of the Little Prince with his flower, the rose, for which she was the only one in the world, which is no longer found on any of the many millions of stars. Behind the apparent courage hid a weak, simple-minded, vulnerable female soul.

The most terrible thing for a little prince is to live without ever smelling a single flower, without ever looking at a star, without ever loving anyone. The little prince loved his rose, and even when he encounters a garden full of roses, he notices that these roses differ from his rose in their emptiness, and he doesn’t want to die for them. And his flower became dearer to him than anyone else in the world, which he looked after with reverent care and love, despite her complaints and boasting. “She is mine,” says the Little Prince proudly.

Personal attitude to what you read.

Exupery's book describes the life of the Little Prince, and in the image of the Little Prince the lives of 10,000,000 children are hidden. Our children's world, which connects all children on planet Earth and beyond, is very frank, kind, friendly, and responsive. It is not always easy for adults to understand our world, or they do not always want to understand it. Yes, we can agree that they were once children, but now they have different concepts, and all the childishness quickly disappears. After all, a person lives a quarter of his life as a child, and three-quarters as an adult.

Sometimes, when we ask them to play our games, adults will definitely remember that “the noodles are boiling in the kitchen” or the pipe is leaking in the bathroom,” they will say that they are very busy. And they will shorten the conversation: “later” or “sorry, “another time,” but “later” and “another time” do not come for a long time. For them, our activities are nonsense, because there are more important things to do. Although through our games and activities we learn about the world and learn to be sensitive to it.

For adults, every second is precious, and sitting for five minutes, dreaming, with folded hands, is a very big waste of time for them. But they don’t understand that by “tumbling around” in their worries, adults simply spoil their mood and waste their energy. But if you distract yourself while working for at least three minutes and think about something good, you can get a little good mood. You can’t be a “serious person” all the time, because numbers and numbers are less interesting things compared to a beautiful night sky or a gentle pink sunset.

In our world, the main thing is friendship, mutual assistance, kindness, and without this it would not exist. It’s very difficult for us to live if we don’t have a close friend or if we accidentally quarrel with him. We are devoted to each other. Even if we have many friends, we still reach out to new friends. And most importantly, it is very difficult for us to part with a friend. In this we are similar to the Fox: “But if you tame me, my life will definitely be illuminated by the sun. I will begin to distinguish your steps among thousands of others.”

Unlike the adult world, in our world there is no turmoil, problems and eternal haste. I am close to the judgment of the Little Prince: “And you will love to look at the stars. They will all become your friends,” “You will look at the sky at night, and there will be such a star there, where I live, where I laugh, and you will hear that all the stars are laughing.” We children are much more vigilant about our surroundings, and always demand an answer to a question. We are more observant and have a more developed sense of imagination; we can add even a small detail and turn a small issue into a big one. But adults approach this differently, they are always busy and even if they want to learn something, they put it off “for later.”

In The Little Prince, nostalgia testifies to the unconditional strength of the “lines of force” that connect a person to what he loves, for which he is responsible. While causing worries and suffering, these spiritual connections at the same time “humanize” the world of the fairy tale. There is no cult of heroic action here: the humanistic meaningfulness of the world is given as its natural state (hence the image of the child hero), which does not need to be conquered.

“Adults” look like absurd exceptions in this world, whose spiritual connections with other people are alienated and perverted, turned into emptiness: they are shown not only as worthy of pity, but as grotesque comic figures1.

That is why we come to the conclusion that this fairy tale by A. S. Exupery is a reminder to adults of why this world and the children living in it exist. Very often, adults, in their endless “serious matters” and concerns, do not even find time to answer the questions of their children, who do not back down until they receive an answer.

I'm not a know-it-all. “That’s why I won’t try to be one.”

I want to be loved. – Therefore, I will be open to loving children.

I know so little about the complex labyrinths of adults. “That’s why I let the children teach me.”

I love being accepted for who I really am. - Therefore, I will strive to empathize with the child and appreciate him.

I am the only one who can live my life. - Therefore, I will not strive to control the life of a child.

I cannot make a child's fear, pain, disappointment and stress disappear. “So I will try to soften the blows.”

I feel fear when I'm defenseless. - Therefore, I will touch the inner world of a defenseless child with kindness, affection and tenderness.

1 From the notes of A. V. Poyarkov to the collection of works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Moscow, 1991

THE WORLD OF ADULTS in A. Exupery’s fairy tale “The Little Prince”

Hero King Ambitious Drunkard Business Man Lamplighter Geographer

Epithets characterizing the hero Dressed in purple and Vain; deaf to everything, Gloomy, with his head hanging, Busy, serious; loves Ridiculous, true to his cause; Old man - scientist; too important ermine; majestic beyond praise. poor guy. accuracy. not lazy; thinks not only about the face.

terribly proud; absolute, yourself.

sovereign monarch; but: good

Actions Looks at the world in a simplified way; I imagined that they were all sitting silently and looking at him, not raising their heads. Does not light or extinguish the lantern. He does not write thick books and command things; confused in admire. lined up in front of him notices an extinguished cigarette. violates the agreement. eternal and unchanging.

orders; got angry; He does not bow when his hordes of bottles are empty and He has no time to walk around, endured disobedience and are greeted. full. Drinks. no time to dream. Disposes of objections; did not know any stars, considers limits and limitations; recounts them.

gave only reasonable orders

Life credo All people are his subjects. To honor means to acknowledge, I drink, to forget that I own the stars, because an agreement is an agreement. Nothing in geography textbooks

The most important thing is that he knows that I am ashamed to drink everyone on the entire planet. No one guessed before me that they should not be confused. They obeyed the lies unquestioningly. More beautiful, more elegant than everyone, to take possession of everyone. and drinking is bad.

Everyone should be asked if they are richer and smarter than everyone else.

what he can give. Power must first of all be reasonable.

Impressions of the Little Prince “These adults are strange people” “Really, adults are very “Yes, really, adults” “He thinks almost like that one “Maybe he is ridiculous. In his “This is the real deal!”

strange people" very, very strange people" drunkard. “No, adults and work still has meaning”

(confused, perplexed; truly amazing people.” (bowed respectfully; I feel sorry for the drunkard) I liked this man more and more, I wanted to help, I sympathized)

“He thinks not only about himself.

I wish I could make friends with someone.”

I read the work of A.S. Exupery (1900-1944) “The Little Prince”. I liked it. This is a bright and sad fairy tale, written in very simple language. In it, along with people, we meet fairy-tale characters: Rose, Fox, Snake, speaking human language. Only in a fairy tale can you travel in space from planet to planet with migratory birds.

“The Little Prince” by Exupery is a very wise fairy tale that makes you think and reflect on the good and bad human qualities, and draw many important conclusions for yourself.

One of the main characters of the work is the little prince, just a child, an inhabitant of a tiny planet “the size of a house.” The prince is lonely, his life is sad and monotonous. He is a hard worker, although he finds the daily weeding of baobab shoots to be “a very boring job.” The prince has a reasonable outlook on life, he understands the need to fight the baobabs, otherwise they will tear the planet into pieces with their roots, so he has a “firm rule”: “... got up in the morning, washed, put himself in order - and immediately put him in order your planet."

Exupery endowed his hero with a kind heart. The prince took care of Rose, a beautiful flower that grew from a seed that, unknown to how, flew onto an asteroid. He fulfills any wishes of the capricious flower, but feels very unhappy, tired of the tricks and tricks of the touchy beauty. The boy decides to go on a journey to discover the meaning of his own life.

He visits different planets, meets a king, an ambitious man, a drunkard, a “business man,” and an old geographer. The behavior and life goals of these people are completely different, but they are all wasting their lives in vain. The little prince sees the meaninglessness of their existence and considers ambition, vanity, drunkenness, indifference, the desire for profit, and false learning unacceptable to himself. Exupery, through the mouth of a child, conveys to readers the important idea that a person’s existence makes sense only when a person brings benefit and happiness to someone. The little prince believes that a person “lived his life in vain if he lived like a mushroom,” that is, he never “smelled a flower in his entire life, never looked at a star, never loved anyone.”

The meeting with the Fox on planet Earth gave the prince a lot to understand the meaning of life. A person’s calling is to selflessly love the one who needs you. This is exactly how the little prince loves the rose he grew; it is dearer to him than anyone else, because “he gave it all his days.”

In conversations with the Fox, the little prince becomes wiser. The fox teaches him to patiently tame animals, to destroy in his heart the indifferent attitude towards all living things, to fill it with love and a sense of responsibility for the one you are taming.

In the fairy tale, the prince learns what friendship is. He comes to the understanding that, having friends, he will never be lonely. The life of the sun is illuminated only by those who have friends. Having gained wisdom, on planet Earth he himself provides spiritual support to a pilot who suffered an accident in the sands of the Sahara. The prince helps him see what is true in life and what is false, helps him not to fall into despair even in the face of death.

I think that every reader will compare the little prince with himself. Is he kind enough, patient with the people around him, especially those close to him, is he a good friend, does he not pass by a person in trouble, does he care about the beauty of his heart? Everyone answers these questions honestly. I understand that you can become a person, and not a “mushroom,” if you only have a bright, kind and pure soul, incapable of evil.

A favorite flower is, first of all, a rejection of all other flowers.

Otherwise, he will not seem the most beautiful.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In the fairy tale The Little Prince, Antoine Exupery gives a very good picture of the relationship between a man and a woman, showing this through the example of the relationship of the Little Prince to his Rose.

A rose is a symbol of love, beauty, and femininity. The little prince did not immediately discern the true inner essence of beauty. But after a conversation with the Fox, the truth was revealed to him - beauty only becomes beautiful when it is filled with meaning and content.

“On your planet, people grow five thousand roses in one garden... and do not find what they are looking for... But what they are looking for can be found in one single rose, in a sip of water... But the eyes are blind. You must search with your heart. If you love a flower - the only one that is not on any other of the many millions of stars, that’s enough: you look at the sky and feel happy and say to yourself: “My flower lives there somewhere, but if a lamb eats it, it’s all the same. as if all the stars went out at once!..."

“Here is my secret, it is very simple: only the heart is vigilant. You cannot see the most important thing with your eyes. Your rose is so dear to you because you gave it your whole soul. You are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose ..."

Arriving on planet Earth, the Little Prince saw roses: they all looked like his flower. And he felt very, very unhappy. His beauty told him that there was no one like her in the entire Universe. And here in front of him are five thousand exactly the same flowers! And it was then that he realized who the rose was to him and how important it was to him. Only thanks to the Fox did he realize that his rose was the only one in the whole world.

The little prince says to the roses: “You are beautiful, but empty. I wouldn’t want to die for your sake. Of course, a random passer-by, looking at my rose, will say that it is exactly the same as you. But to me it is the only one dearer than all of you. After all, it is hers.” , and not you, I watered every day. I covered her, not you, with a glass cover, protecting her from the wind, I killed the caterpillars for her, I left 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.

You love when you put your soul into it...

Love is a complex science, it turns out that you need to comprehend it, you need to learn love. The fox helps the Little Prince comprehend this complex science, and the little boy bitterly admits to himself: “You should never listen to what the flowers say. You just have to look at them and breathe in their scent. My flower filled my whole planet with fragrance, but I didn’t know how to enjoy it...

It was necessary to judge not by words, but by deeds. She gave me her scent and illuminated my life. I shouldn't have run. Behind these pitiful tricks and tricks I should have guessed tenderness... But I was too young, I didn’t know how to love yet.”

The rose tamed the Little Prince not with its uniqueness, but with the efforts that he put into it. This makes it different from hundreds of other roses. We are forever tamed by those for whom we tried, gave our soul, patience, time. We may stop loving them and even feel something like hatred and irritation towards former men with whom we were destined to break up, towards former friends who did not appreciate our friendship. But we will never feel complete indifference to them, because we once invested a piece of ourselves in them, and it remained in them. These are the invisible bonds that the Fox spoke about.

The image of Zoza is one of the main ones in the fairy tale. Of course, it symbolizes a woman and love for a woman. Using the relationship between Rose and the Little Prince, the author shows the problems that stand in the way of true love. The rose in the fairy tale was very capricious and asked the prince to take care of her. And at first the Little Prince took care of her, and then doubts settled in his soul. He took her words to heart and became very unhappy. But after all his travels, he began to understand the truth. In the lines: “If you love a flower - the only one that is no longer on any of the many millions of stars - that’s enough: you look at the sky - and you’re happy.” The author talks about the kind of love when you don’t ask for anything in return, when you’re just happy that your flower is there somewhere. The little prince understands that he was in vain to listen to the rose; he should have just looked and enjoyed its scent. After all, the rose filled his entire planet with fragrance, but he did not know how to enjoy it. He understands that one must judge by actions, not by words. She illuminated his life, and he ran away. The little prince did not guess, behind all the rose’s tricks, her tenderness for him; he was too young, he did not yet know how to love.

Many critics agree that the image of a rose represents the writer’s wife, Consuela de Saint-Exupéry. But even if this is not so, Saint-Exupery speaks about the most important thing, about how to love. Now people have become too selfish, they have forgotten that in love it is more important to give rather than receive.

Fox image

Finding himself on Earth, in a deserted desert, the Little Prince meets the kind and wise Fox. Which symbolizes friendship. In him, the prince finds the friend he was looking for. As in many fairy tales, the Fox personifies wisdom and knowledge of life and tells the Little Prince the secret of the human heart. The author conveyed to the heroes of this tale his understanding of friendship and responsibility for each other. The relationship between the prince and the fox is a story about true friendship. The Fox teaches the Little Prince how to love and treat friendship; people have forgotten about this and therefore lost their friends, lost the ability to love. Saint-Exupéry regrets that people do not see anything and turn their lives into a meaningless existence. “Only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the most important thing with your eyes... Your Rose is so dear to you because you gave her your whole soul...”

The concept of "tame"

To tame means to create bonds of love, unity of souls. The secret of taming is revealed to the Little Prince by the Fox, he explains that the prince is just a boy for him, like many other boys, and the fox for the prince is just another fox among thousands of other foxes. “But if you tame me, we will need each other. You will be the only one for me in the whole world. And I will be alone for you in the whole world. (...) if you tame me, my life will be illuminated as if by the sun. I will begin to distinguish your steps among thousands of others...” The author says that love and friendship are not just connections with other beings, they enrich our lives, give us an understanding of the world around us, filling it with meaning. “You are forever responsible for everyone you have tamed” - this is the important truth that the Fox reveals. To tame means: to create bonds. Bonds of love, trust, friendship and responsibility. And now you are no longer just two, you become the only ones for each other in the whole world, you become necessary to each other. “You can only learn those things that you tame,” said the Fox. “People no longer have enough time to find out anything.” Taming is the work of the heart; it means tying oneself to another with ties of tenderness, love, and responsibility. This means killing the indifferent attitude towards this world. Saint-Exupery reminded us that friendship cannot be bought in a store, for it you need to open your heart and soul.