The Little Prince

The Little PrinceThe Little Prince

Satire is a literal style that authors use to criticize an audience’s or people’s vices through humor, ridicule, exaggerations, or irony. Irony is a literal style whereby the narrator uses the opposite of the meaning of what one is trying to emphasize and signifies the humor of the content. Various forms of irony and satire are found in "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The author has widely applied these styles to educate, enhance the humor, and ridicule immoral behaviors that society has normalized today. Generally, the whole story is satirical. The prince owns an entire planet, but despite the riches on the earth, he is not happy because he has nobody around who could even entertain him; therefore, he feels lonely most of the time. The discussion below dissects other specific parts of the story that shows satire and irony, using examples and quotes from the book. 

At the begging of the story, Antoine displays a picture of an animal called Boa. The line states,” "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it (Antoine 4). After that, they cannot move, and they sleep through the six months they need for digestion” (Antoine 4). The picture is satirical because it criticizes poor decision-making abilities. In other words, the author uses satire to ask the audience, “Why should you make one bad decision that causes you more harm later?” Besides, he shows people his first drawing later, and everyone sees the drawing as a hat and finds nothing wrong with it. Antoine draws a more accurate view of the Boa, with an alive elephant inside his stomach. The grown-ups despised the drawing this time around and told him to focus on more important things like geography, arithmetic, and grammar (Antoine 5). The persona expresses his disappointment in grown-ups since they do not understand simple things from children by themselves. Children cannot continuously dedicate themselves to explaining to adults what they should see by themselves effortlessly. In this aspect, the author shows irony by demonstrating that children are cleverer than adults; what children understand, adults cannot easily understand.

The excerpt of irony is demonstrated by the little prince who owns a whole planet but has little knowledge about what happens on other planets, and he is bored with no one to entertain him. In his kingdom, he watches sunset to entertain himself, and this aspect has a contextual irony. The author criticizes the belief of humanity that happiness is gotten from acquiring so much wealth that you lack nothing and emphasizes that satisfaction is from within a person and not outside.

In the story, the narrator highlights that when one makes a new friend, the grown-ups never want to know who the person is as an individual. Instead, they ask questions related to figures to help them judge the person.’ they never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him" (Antoine 48). This paragraph shows the irony in human nature and criticizes the lenses through which grown beings judge fellow beings, as this aspect is regarded as shallow by the narrator. The narrator believes that grown-ups should be more logical and knowledgeable as their age suggests, but they do the opposite instead.

 

 

Work Cited

De Saint-Exupéry, Antoine. "Le petit prince [The little prince]." Verenigde State van Amerika: Reynal & Hitchkock (1943) 1-89.

 

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