Exercise 1: Character Study of the Little Prince

Character Study of The Little Prince

Part 1

Traits of The Little Prince

1.    Physical

a.     He is extraordinarily small.

b.     His hair is curly and golden.

c.      He has an odd little voice.

d.     He comes from another planet, the Asteroid B-612 where he has a rose and three volcanoes.

2.    Emotions, Values, and Beliefs

a.     He believes that something that can be seen is the most important thing that can make something ordinary becomes special.

3.    Behavior

a.     He likes to help others in need.

b.     He is not afraid to make new acquaintances and he greets everyone politely.

c.      He always sees the good in every stranger’s heart.

4.    Interests

a.     The Little Prince likes to embark on adventures throughout the universe and he likes to visit and explore planets he found along the way.

b.     He also likes to make friends throughout his journey and kindly talk to them and get to know them better.

c.      He shows a great interest in his rose he left at home on Asteroid B-612. He loves this flower, he held his flower dear in his heart.

d.     The Little Prince likes to value little things in life and he prefers to take slow steps and enjoy the ride of life rather than rushing his day.

e.     He shows a great interest to sunsets as well. He said sad people must love sunsets.

5.    Nature and Personality

a.     He has no fear, and he never shows any sign of tiredness on his face.

b.     The Little Prince likes to imagine about things around him and he enjoys living his fantasy.

c.       He is observant and he has keen eye about everything that goes around him.

d.     The Prince in a very curious man. He is very inquisitive and persistent that every question that has been asked by him must be answered.

e.     He is also creative and seems very “artsy”. He thinks out of the box and he can understand the narrator’s odd drawing about the inside and outside of a boa constrictor.

f.      The Little Prince is a born thinker. He is a sensitive, melancholic, delicate man that cares and pays attention about his surroundings.

g.     Although he is adventurous, he is very cautious, neat, and very thorough in his investigations.

h.     The Little Prince has a good natured heart, he is polite, and he thinks about others first before himself.

i.       He is a wise man that doesn’t realize that he is one.

6.    Experiences

a. The Little Prince bumps into various people during his travels. He faced many kinds of people and he learned many things along the way.

7.    Relationships

a.     The Little Prince meets the narrator of the story in the Saharan deserts. They grew close together for one day in the desert, just before the one year anniversary of the Prince’s arrival upon the earth.

b.     The Little Prince has a ‘love interest’ left in his planet. He has a little rose that he nurtures. This rose loves him back, and knowing that a rose is an ephemeral thing, he became sad. This is the reason why the Prince said that he loves things that are unseen and far away, which makes something ordinary become so special.

c.      On his journey, he met a King which inhabits a planet. This King is lonely and for him all men other than him are his subjects. Although arrogant and a bit cocky, he is actually a sophisticated reasonable man with a good heart.

d.     The Prince met a conceited man along the way. This man sees other people as his admirers.

e.     He also met a tippler, a man who likes to drink to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.

f.      After meeting the tippler, he met a businessman who only has one interest; counting his self-acclaimed stars. This man is accurate, and greedy.

g.     The Prince met a lamplighter after that. The lamplighter is probably the only adult that the Prince found very faithful to his job, obedient, and not selfish among the other men he met.

h.     The Little Prince met an old geographer that has a vast knowledge of various places, but never explores his own planet.

i.       After that he met  a snake on Earth, in the desert. The snake is a smart, intelligent being.

j.       Prince met a desert flower and some flower bushes and made an acquaintance with them too. The desert flower said that ‘man has no roots’ they can go wherever they want letting the harsh wind blow through them.

k.     He also met a fox that wants to be tamed. This fox taught him about bonds between people, and made him realize about his love for the rose in his planet, something he ‘tamed’ that becomes very dear to him.

l.       He met a railway switchman that envies children.

m.   He also met a merchant along the way.

8.    Strengths and Weaknesses

a.     Strengths

1.     The Little Prince has a good heart and good manners.

2.     He is a brave man that sees the good in people.

3.     He has a strong faith in himself, thus he can travel very far to the earth and made acquaintances along the way.

4.     He is an observant, decent, curious man that wants to learn about everything and enjoys his life faithfully.

b.     Weaknesses

1.     The Little Prince gets sad easily at times.

2.     He sometimes takes matters too seriously, and this saddens him at times.

9.    Motives and Objectives

a.     He wants to see the rest of the universe and meet new things along the way, although in order to do that, he must leave his beloved rose.

Part 2

The Little Prince plays an important role throughout this story. Although he is not the narrator of the story, the story pivots around him. The Prince is a genuine protagonist. He has a good heart and good attitude. He depicts a perfect role model to the young readers because it is very obvious that he has the good traits. The Little Prince’s inquisitiveness and curiosity about vast array of things resembles that of a student’s need to know everything and learn about the world by exploring and by learning from others. This is important for the young readers to understand that he can be a good role model. Not only for the young, this book also has a message even for adults. Although the Prince may be a young person, he is very wise. He teaches us to value little things around us and I think it is not an easy thing to do especially for adults, as the railway switchman in the book said, adults envy the kids because they can appreciate things in life more.

            Personally, the character of the Little Prince is crucial in terms of what he says in this book. I think he symbolizes innocence of a child, something that looks naïve but actually it overpowers the mind of the adults. Children may look weak, but their imagination is stronger than adults’. A child can see the goodness in people’s heart first and ignores about how rich or poor that person is. A child’s heart is also pure and innocent, that they can look through people’s shells and find the warmth inside their soul. It is often found that the Prince says something wittier and wiser than some adult characters in the book. He taught the readers to value life and see the good and people, and also not to forget about themselves and turn into typical adults. People must be a kid at heart.

            The Little Prince is crucial to the story because he is the wanderer that ties the events altogether. He was the one meeting various people in his journey, and this provides the beats that shows the messages that leads into the ultimate morale message of the book.

            I think the key message of the book is about valuing things in life. The Little Prince taught us that adults are strange creatures, they see figures instead of sceneries, they show no interest in people’s experiences but they will pay attention when they know that someone is rich. People change, and as time goes, they forgot the child inside of their hearts, the child that yearns to wander and play around, the child that knows not of money, but of the blue skies and the blushing cheeks of their friends. Sometimes we forgot about being a child, but we can’t help it. But we can try and value the little things around us. Something will become special when we nurture it and value it, when we ‘tame’ it and bond with it, like what the fox said. Something usual like any other rose would be special among thousands of roses in the world if we are nurturing the rose –bonding- ourselves. He also teaches us that things that are really important in life are the things that are invisible to the eyes. It is never about the matter, it is about the soul that one possesses. The Little Prince shows that by saying that he can’t see his rose back home, but that is why every time he looks at the vast sky, he will think of the rose and wonder what she is doing, that is what makes looking at the sky very special and endearing to him. This book is really good. It contains many messages of life that we can ponder on, packed in a very compact style with enticing beauty. It proves that sometimes a little amount of words mean more than thousands of empty lines of words. The Little Prince taught us to enjoy simplicity and value our life and friendship.

Mindmap