Friendship And Love In The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint Exupery

1C (Digital copy with different page numbers).

“The Little Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, contains valuable moral lessons about friendship and love that resonate with audiences of all ages. The fox and the rose in particular embody such lessons.

The fox teaches the little prince the meaning of deep friendship and how to forge a lasting bond. “One only understands the thing that one tames,” the fox says. His wise words explain why the little prince loves his rose so much. The time he has spent caring for her, taming her, has made her important to him. He left her and his planet because he was confused by her demanding words and did not yet understand the meaning of love. Things become important due to time and memories. The fox shares that even when the little prince leaves, the wheat field they met in, which held no meaning to the fox before, would bring him comfort because it would remind him of the boy’s yellow hair. The little prince’s friendship with the fox opens his eyes to the truth of relationships. The fox shares a secret, saying “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”. The things that mean the most in life can only be experienced through the heart. The little prince, as well as any reader, learns about the true value of people – of friends and lovers.

The little prince realizes that in her way, his rose was being truthful when she said she loved him. Before he leaves his planet, she openly admits, “Of course I love you….It is my fault that you have not known it all the while. That is of no importance. But you – you have been just as foolish as I. Try to be happy….”. Selfless and gentle, her words completely contrast her previous behavior. Yet, the little pri...

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... willing to sacrifice his young mind and to accomplish their goal of destroying the buggers. When they trick him into destroying the bugger planet by disguising it as a simulation, Mazer, an old time war hero and Ender’s teacher, explains, “it had to be a child, Ender….You were faster than me. Better than me. I was too old and cautious. Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart. But you didn’t know. We made sure you didn’t know. You were reckless and brilliant and young. It’s what you were born for” (298). A child does not have the same inhibitions as an adult and makes decisions without second-guessing himself, similar to the way Ender acts. It is that kind of impulse the military needed to achieve victory. They were willing to lie to Ender and sacrifice his conscience for what they considered to be the greater good.