tHE LITTLE PRINCE

The Little Prince

Chapter One

This chapter is about the narrator's heartwarming experiences as a child, when he wanted to be a painter. The narrator is nostalgic about his childhood aspiration to be a painter. However he was discouraged from painting by the grown ups, who perceived painting to be a waste of time. They instead asked the narrator to focus on more "important" subjects like math and geography. He was thus asked to concentrate on these subjects and so he did, growing up to become a pilot. The narrator questions the grown up's perception of painting, or rather the lack of it. Grown ups are so robust and mechanic in their lives, that every scope of innovation and creativity is only looked upon by an ignorant eye. The narrator recollects about the day when he tried to draw a boa constrictor. The narrator was fascinated by the fact that boas could swallow entire elephants and then lay dormant for six months. But this fascination was not shared with him by the grown ups, who, understandably and unfortunately, had more essential things in life to worry about. Such is the sense of disconnection and detachment amongst the elders, that they have lost their ability to comprehend and more essentially appreciate, the more common, but magnificent things in life.

Painting is one of the most beauteous forms of expression. Painting is like an escape route for all the emotions which cannot be expressed due to the restraints of spoken language. Paintings, contrary to widespread perception, are simple in nature. One must be free of any preoccupations about life to truly appreciate all forms of paintings. The narrator, as a child had drawn a drawing of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant. However, no one interpreted the painting as one with a boa, for they all thought that it was just a hat. The shortcomings of perception and language were clearly brought out, as everyone interpreted the same object in different manners. Let down by his early adventures in the profession, the narrator gives up his ambition, but not his dreams, of becoming a painter. Societal pressures forced him to give up his aspirations. It was society;s reasoning that children must pay attention to subjects which would be of "help" in the future and not pursue "useless" hobbies like painting, where one could have no future hopes. It is this overemphasis on academic subjects that is harming children even today. For instance, a simple survey about the age at which children start schooling led to startling observations. In Finland, children are sent to school at the age of seven, while in the rest of the Europe most children start schooling by the age of two! Yet Finland has one of the best student excellence rates in the entire world. This mathematical survey is ample proof that children must be given time, to do what they like, and not be sucked into the realm of world objectives when they are not even 4 years old.

But society for some reason has never been able to get rid of its misconceptions about the worthless nature of extra-curricular activities. For instance, children diagnosed with autism, until recently, were denied admissions to any good schools or colleges. Autism is a learning condition amongst children. But autistic children are found to have better than average creative insights. History tells us that autism or learning disability is no obstacle to success in life. Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Vincent Van Gogh, the famous medieval painter, were all known to be autistic. But societal norms pressurize children to kill their innovative and creative instincts and rather focus on the more direct things in life. The narrator craves for someone to share his insights on his drawings, but only meets with failure. There is stark line of mockery in the chapter when the narrator says that he needs to bring himself down to the limited and narrow intellectual level of grown ups to converse with them.

Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man."

Human preoccupations have led to a loss of culture and emotions, which are best embodied by creative forms of language such as painting. Grown ups today take everything at face value, just like they took the boas for the hat. But it would be a confirmation bias to blame the grown ups alone, for when one looks at the drawing of the narrator, it does indeed look like a hat!