Wen 丨 Qingxin Junyue
"The Little Prince", the famous novel of the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a short twenty-five thousand words (translated by Li Jihong), can be compared to excellent classical comedy and long works, under the author's clever writing skills, the narrative structure of "The Little Prince" is extremely complete, which can be described as "although the sparrow is small and complete". At the same time, in a few words, it also contains the author's germinated "existentialist" ideas and criticisms of some phenomena in reality.
Some people may think that "The Little Prince" is a fairy tale book suitable for children to read, in fact, this idea is not accurate, the reason for this misconception of "The Little Prince" is likely to be that some people simply treat the work as a fairy tale book, ignoring the ideas and concepts carried in the text. This article interprets the connotation of "The Little Prince" with the thoughts and concepts of the author of "The Little Prince".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > existentialism and love collide, a deeper interpretation of love and responsibility</h1>
"The Little Prince" leaves the most impressive impression on the reader, is that the little prince understands why the rose he owns is precious and beautiful through his interaction with the fox, which is such a simple story, which carries the "existentialist" ideas sprouted by the author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the context of the times and the deep thinking of love and responsibility on this basis.
Love has always been an eternal topic in literature and art, and part of the reason for this phenomenon is because of the magic of love - the fatal beauty, which is one of the reasons why most people desire love. In Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Emma's choice to marry Bovary stems from a desire for the beauty of love, and the 13-year-old Emma is sent to the monastery by her father, where she receives all kinds of legends about the beauty of love heard from books, songs, and stories, so when Emma sees Bovary who has come to treat her father, she gives her longing for love to this doctor who is different from the surrounding crops.
Come to think of it, in our youth, isn't the desire for love also an expectation of this beauty? But how this beauty is produced, many people have never thought deeply, so they will mistakenly think that this beauty is a derivative of love, and they have this beauty when they get love.
But is that really the case? We return to Madame Bovary once again, and if the above idea is correct, then why is Emma disappointed in the marriage after marriage, and feels that she does not get the expected beauty from the marriage. In this regard, it can be said that Emma's desires and fantasies cannot be satisfied from Bovary, a common doctor, but then he pursues Rodolfo and Leon in spite of himself and abandons moral principles, and also does not obtain the beauty of the expected love, which shows a problem: the beauty of love is not necessarily a derivative of love, and Emma does not know how to produce the beauty of love, and does not know how to correctly obtain this beauty from love.
In real life, the same is true, some people continue to try new love before marriage, some people frequently cheat after marriage, leaving aside desire and character, which may also have a problem similar to Emma: there is no correct recognition of the beauty in marital love, resulting in the marriage love does not get the expected beauty, otherwise the expectation is satisfied, and the desire may not pose a threat.
And Antoine de Saint-Exupéry also raised such questions in "The Little Prince" and gave his own views on it, reflected in the little prince, the rose and the fox, the little prince has a rose on the planet B612, because it is unique, so he sees the beauty of the rose, but when he sees 5,000 of the same roses in the rose garden on the earth, the rose he owns loses its color, and the loss of the little prince is actually equivalent to the problem we have in marriage and love. We think that beauty is possessed by love itself, but when we find that the love we have is very ordinary and does not have special beauty, we begin to question.
Later, it was not until the little prince met the fox and "domesticated" each other to create a relationship that he understood that beauty is not something that things themselves have, but that we need to endow our emotions with, just like the fox's interpretation of domestication, and the domestication of each other makes each other different, and only in the relationship of creation does beauty arise:
"If you domesticate me, then we will need each other." You are unique to me and I am unique to you. ”
The fox's explanation is the author's "existentialist" idea that existence precedes essence. The value and meaning of love is not what love itself has, but what we create through action, which we give love a special value and meaning, which is different from idealism (matter is the product of spirit), but aims to emphasize the influence of subjective emotions outside the objective existence of love (intimacy).
The little prince covered his rose with a glass cover, resisted the wind, destroyed the caterpillar, the rose is objectively existent, on this basis, the little prince's series of actions have given the objective existence a special subjective emotion, so that the rose glows with brilliant colors, so that his rose is more beautiful than all the roses in the rose garden, because "this is his rose".
And the beauty of love, too. Many people touch love because of the desire for beauty, but after obtaining it, they do not get the expected beauty, we can not blame the mistake on love, and we should not question love from this, but we only focus on the essence of things, and ignore the creation and emotional empowerment of things, the beauty of the house, more lies in our decoration and the emotions given to it, the beauty of love, but also in our management, pay and attitude.
Marriage love is the domestication of two people to each other (the creation of relationship), we find the beauty of love through each other, rather than we sit and wait for the beauty of love to be conceived and descended, at the same time, "always responsible for what you domesticate", this is not only responsibility, but also the promotion and guarantee of creating beauty, responsibility itself is also a kind of beauty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > absurd colors and fairy tale styles, hiding a critique of desire and life</h1>
There are many absurd fairy tales in The Little Prince, such as the Little Prince's dislike of the baobab tree because the uncontrolled growth of the baobab tree will destroy his planet B612; for example, the so-called "serious thing" of the businessman on the fourth planet is to accurately calculate the number of stars in the sky- 501,622,731; for example, the passengers on the train who come and go do not know where they want to go and what they need; for example, the thirst pills sold by the merchants, in order to save mankind fifty-three minutes a week ......
At first glance, these plots are too absurd and unreasonable.
However, if we remove the prejudice against fairy tales and contempt, and change to a more serious and serious attitude, perhaps from these virtual and absurd storylines, we can see some microcosm of real life, and this is the writing method and creative intention of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of "The Little Prince": a critique of real life.
(1) "Adults love numbers", a critique of over-rationalization
There is a unique detail in the work, most of the plot is accompanied by a certain number, whether it is the naming of the planet where the little prince lives, the planet b612, or the plot development and advancement, the little prince visits from the first planet to the seventh planet (the earth), and the number seems to hide a certain meaning in it.
The whole plot of the work is the memoir of the protagonist of the story who spent time with the little prince six years ago, and the reason why there are so many numbers is that the idea of using the protagonist is to let the adults read and understand, because in his view, adults prefer to know everything through numbers. And this ingenious arrangement is a metaphor for the author's criticism of some phenomena in real life, in this regard, Li Jihong, the translator of "The Little Prince", wrote in the introduction:
"The author criticizes the most pathological feature of modern life, the so-called rationalization—an attempt to define and measure subjective value meanings using an objective system of standards."
Because in real life, some adults' so-called rational thinking is to use numbers to judge the value of things, use numbers to understand the meaning of things, and the reason for this pathological characteristic stems from the rise of the monetary economy, the rapid development of the economy, the negative impact on human life, most people put the joy and happiness of life, the value and meaning of life, completely on the pursuit of material (money), and because of this, ignore the attention to the spiritual world.
Some people think that hard work to earn money, you can get happiness and happiness, but in fact, this kind of thinking is the crux of some people's unhappiness in life, money is only a tool in life, not all the meaning and value of life, even if the material wealth can get the satisfaction of material desires, but such happiness will not last long, and want to obtain spiritual happiness, the important thing is to understand the true meaning of life, the source of happiness and the true desire in the heart, and these have nothing to do with numbers. To a certain extent, the numbers obliterate our way of discovering beauty, and therefore there is a lament of the protagonist in the work:
"For those of us who know how to live, of course, numbers don't matter!"
(2) The "serious things" among the large population, the criticism of the pursuit of Sheben one by one
What is a "serious thing" is also a very interesting question in the work, because in the story, adults and children are opposed to "serious things".
When the little prince visited the fourth planet, he met the businessman, and in the eyes of the businessman, the so-called serious thing was to concentrate on counting the stars, the degree of concentration - lived for fifty-four years, and was only disturbed three times in the middle; the price of concentration - lack of exercise, suffering from arthritis, when the little prince asked what this serious thing could bring, the businessman's reply was very ridiculous:
At that time, when I saw this description, I inadvertently thought of those who worked too hard for life in real life, there was no mistake in earning money to support the family, and there was nothing wrong with working hard, which was the beauty of the laborer, and it was also the embodiment of responsibility, but excessive hard work, hard work at all costs, the results obtained are likely to be the opposite of the purpose of the initial struggle. Come to think of it, recently Teacher Tu Lei decided to practice the five-year covenant with his daughter in advance, reduce the workload (leave the stage of the love defense war) and return to the family, the reason is the same, if you continue to fight excessively, it is likely to violate the original intention of the initial struggle.
The "serious things" in the eyes of children are the opposite of adults, they know what they want, only pay attention to the things that can bring happiness to themselves, and will not consider whether the so-called things have value and meaning, because happiness and happiness are the greatest value and meaning.
(3) Chasing for the sake of chasing, a critique of the form of chasing
In addition, in the work, another type of phenomenon is criticized, the adults above chase things that forget the original intention, and the adults mentioned next are completely lost in the pursuit.
In the plot of the little prince and the train wrench, the little prince watches the trains pass by the station, some go to the far side, some come back from afar, and the passengers on the train have no idea what they want, just to chase and chase, time is slowly passing, life has never felt beautiful, but it is not as lucky as the child, because the child is at least very clear about what he wants, even if he likes something is ridiculous, just like the little prince said:
"They'll spend their time on ragdolls and feel like ragdolls are very important. If someone snatches the rag doll away, they'll cry..."
Many of us know that the struggle and chase in life is happy and happy, but happiness and happiness is not because of the form of struggle and chase, but we are closer to the destination we want to go through efforts, such struggle and chase is valuable and meaningful to life, otherwise blind chase, it is easy to backfire, as the German dramatist Bertold Brecht said: "If you run too fast when chasing happiness, you will surpass happiness, and happiness will be left behind by you."
Not necessarily have more, will be happy, not necessarily hard, there will be gains, because the focus is not on having and working hard, the key is still what we have, what is the direction of effort, just like the 1900 in the film "The Pianist of the Sea" chose to stay on the Virginia passenger ship, he does not envy the people on land can freely chase the place where the four seasons are like summer, because he knows that autumn and spring come, summer will come, and all he needs is music, and with the company of music, he can get happiness.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > as far as the eye can see, stop at the essence; where the heart goes, it sees beauty</h1>
With the increase of time, the children who were once children became the adults they are today, and as the experience increased, the thinking of adults changed.
Adults always think that rational view of things is more accurate, but some rational thinking may not be suitable for life, rational thinking may erase our perception of beauty to a certain extent, just like the geographer in the work pays attention to the volcano of the planet where the little prince is located, and despises the unique rose, geographers think that the rose is fleeting and meaningless, but in fact, at the moment when the flower blooms, for the little prince and the flower, that beauty transcends everything.
What adults call rationality:
It will be worth it in terms of loss
Will measure the meaning by the result
Feelings of judgment of reason for the association
However, the value and meaning of a thing are far from being measured by the gains, losses and results seen by the eye. Just like in the work, adults are keen to use "thirst quenching pills" to solve the demand for drinking water, although this way is more rapid and effective, but it only solves the needs of the body, but can not meet the needs of the soul, but not as good as the attitude of the little prince with the "thirst pills" to save the time, personally go to a sweet spring is meaningful, because then you can feel the story of the protagonist and the little prince in the desert to find water, mental and physical satisfaction:
"It comes from the trek under the stars, the rumbling of the song and the power of my hands. It is like a gift that is good for the soul. ”
This satisfaction is the beauty of life, but this beauty cannot be seen through the eyes, and can only be seen clearly with the heart, and the heart represents the inner feelings, not the so-called rational thinking.
Perhaps, if we were replaced by the little prince, choosing between the roses we owned and the 5,000 roses in the rose garden, it is likely that some people would choose the latter; if we were replaced by foxes, knowing that the final outcome with the little prince was different, it is very likely that we would not make a request for domestication of each other. However, some emotions cannot be judged by reason, a rose is far less numerous than 5,000 roses, but the one we have is unique; the fox and the little prince are full of pain when they are separated, but behind the pain, because of the appearance of the little prince, the fox's life has more wheat yellow color.
Many people may watch the entire work, or can't understand what the short appearance of the little prince brings to the protagonist, and what makes the protagonist obsessed with the little prince?
Because in the short nine days that the protagonist and the little prince spent together, no special things happened, and it may even be in the hearts of some adults, the friendship generated by the nine days will not have a special meaning.
However, perhaps in the protagonist's heart, after nine days with the little prince, his world has changed, at least when he sees the stars at night, there will be thoughts, just like the little prince said to the protagonist before leaving:
"When you look up at the night sky, because I live on a certain star, because I will laugh on a certain star, so to you, it's as if all the stars are laughing. Then you will have a laughing star! ”
For the protagonist, this is the most important and beautiful thing in life, but this beauty cannot be seen with the eyes and needs to be felt with the heart. Life is also like this, there is no lack of happiness and happiness in life, but the premise is not simply to see with the eyes.
And this is the connotation of "The Little Prince", so before the story begins, the author wants to give this children's storybook to adults, because all adults are originally children, but few people remember it.
Qingxin Junyue, original author of headlines, senior mental health instructor, TA storyteller, film critic. Warm you, me with words.