Genre
Fiction; Children's Fiction
Setting and Context
The story begins and ends in the Sahara Desert. Some other events take place on the little prince’s home planet, and on other planets visited by him on his way to the Earth. This story is believed to be set in the middle of the 20th century.
Narrator and Point of View
The little prince’s life is told in the third person, and his involvement with the narrator is told in the first person by the narrator.
Tone and Mood
Tone: solemn, sad, thoughtful
Mood: melancholy, contemplative, beautiful
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonists of the story are the little prince and the pilot.
Major Conflict
Will the prince realize what his flower means to him? Will he return to his home planet? Will the narrator fix his plane and leave the desert?
Climax
The climax happens when the little prince realizes the importance of his rose, and this happens after the fox tells him his secret. It clears everything up for the little prince.
Foreshadowing
"When I drew the baobabs, I was inspired by a sense of urgency" (The narrator, p. 16). This gives the sense that something dramatic or tragic is going to happen, which it does when the prince dies.
Understatement
"I'm leaving today, too" (The little prince, p. 74). This is an understatement because he is actually going to kill himself.
-"There had been nothing but a yellow flash close to his ankle... He fell gently, the way a tree falls" (The narrator, p. 81). This is an understatement because he died, rather than just fell over.
Allusions
N/A
Imagery
Imagery is used when describing the home planet of the little prince and other planets. Also, vivid descriptions of the desert, especially at night, help to get deeper into the characters’ inner world.
Paradox
The paradox exists in the fact that people are supposed to become wiser and smarter as they grow up into adults, but they on the contrary are grow farther away from such qualities. Everything has to be explained to them.
Parallelism
- The pilot's crash in the desert is paralleled by the prince's.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“I was awakened by an odd little voice” means that he was awakened by the little prince.
Personification
“She dressed herself slowly. She adjusted her petals one by one” (The little prince, p. 22). The little prince is describing the rose.
