Sara+R--Little+Prince+Essay

experience as the result of a journey in which he comes into contact for the first time with the adult world. Describe the Little Prince's evolution as** 
 * 3. Some critics have stated that //The Little Prince// ** ** is a "Bildungsroman", a novel in which the protagonist goes from a state of innocence to a state of
 * he moves from innocence to knowledge.**

Throughout the book //__The Little Prince__// by Antoine de Saint-Exupery the prince is going through a process that could only be called the shattering of childhood innocence. In literary terms this is a bildungsroman, a journey from innocence into knowledge. The prince’s journey is very different from our own in many ways. He travels through space, we travel through adolescence. He falls in love with a flower; we fall in love with people. Yet he is influenced by the same virtues or flaws that we are as we make our own journeys. He was shown vanity, shame, arrogance, and what happens when you lose your imagination. He was shocked by the world outside of his own, and many teenagers are. The first time the prince is shocked into knowledge and the out side world is when he meets the King who believes he controls everything within reason, yet he truly controls nothing. Here the prince’s knowledge about the world grows, and he realizes that people need to feel important. Next, he meets a man who must be admired, and gets a bit shaken by how much like his flower this man is. There he learns about the dangers of vanity, and what loneliness can cause. After that he meets the tippler. He is confused by the vice that this man is stuck in, and leaves without understanding the never-ending circle that the tippler is stuck in. A little later he meets a business man. The business man counts the stars so that he can buy more of them. This baffles the prince because to him owning something is when you care for it, not when you buy it. He then meets the lamp lighter, a man who “follows a terrible profession.” He has orders to light the lamp at night and dampen it in the morning, yet as his asteroid rotates faster and faster it becomes unreasonable. It becomes unreasonable, but he follows his orders to the letter. This shows the prince the dangers of what happens when you don’t think for yourself. Even though the lamp lighter might’ve been the most reasonable man, he had no individuality. On the next asteroid he meets a geographer. The geographer tells him that “flowers are ephemeral,” which hurts and scares the prince. The thought that his flower //**will**// die is too much for him. Nevertheless he goes to Earth on the recommendation of the geographer. On earth he learns much about friendship, and how something may not be the only one, but it is still special. The story ends with a knowing sort of suicide. The prince, wanting to go home and see his flower, allows a snake to bite him. Whatever happened to the little prince, he brought with him a wealth of knowledge that could only be gained from experience.

Sara--Well done with making your point and bringing it to a close. Your comparison of the little prince's journey to that of a human teen is a very good one. You have captured the importance of each character and his effect on the prince. My concern is with the formatting--even though this is done on-line, you still need to paragraph as you would on paper. You have no paragraphing here --no breaks, just rambling. This is important as well in the impact of an essay.