Discussion The Little Prince ending

[TurboCharcha]

As those who have read the book The Little Prince know, The Little Prince "dies" or CTBs with the snake method to go back to his planet. What do you think of that? Personally I find it weird because The Little Prince could travel before to many other planets, as we read in the stories he tells the aviator. Why does he need to "die" to return?

My own interpretation so far is that The Little Prince is the aviator's child essence, if you will, and being stranded in the desert allowed it to be incarnated, but when the aviator repairs his plane, he must return to society, to the world of adults, and The Little Prince cannot go with him, he has to transcend into the stars, letting the aviator know he will be there:

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You -only you- will have stars that can laugh!"

This would serve as a reminder to the aviator that he can still think like a child, giving importance to the things that really matter, like the sound of someone's voice, their favorite games or if they collect butterflies.

 

[Forever Sleep]

It's an amazing book but, makes me cry so much. It's been a while since I read it but, I never really interpreted it as him going home. Maybe because I'm never too convinced on reincarnation or afterlife stories.

I suppose it always slightly puzzled me. I used to wonder if his suicide was out of guilt- that he left the flower on his home planet to fend for itself. It didn't register to me that he could return home.

Also that he maybe felt at odds with the world somehow. Not sure, it has been a while since I read it. I remember it making sense on an emotional level somehow more than a logical one.

 

[TurboCharcha]

I used to wonder if his suicide was out of guilt

This makes sense. He learned on his trip how special his flower was because of the time he had invested on her and that she cared for him.

It didn't register to me that he could return home.

I don't know if he literally returned. I like that that is open to interpretation, but he does explicitly say that he is going home:

"I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine," he said. "Now you can go back home-"

"How do you know about that?"

I was just coming to tell him that my work had been successful, beyond anything that I had dared to hope.

He made no answer to my question, but he added:

"I, too, am going back home today . . ."

Also that he maybe felt at odds with the world somehow. Not sure, it has been a while since I read it. I remember it making sense on an emotional level somehow more than a logical one.

This! yes! The first time I read it I pretty much only felt the book and did feel that he was at odds with the world because he seems so pure and untouched by it, as people really appear to be when they are children. He, instead of getting molded by the world, remained The Little Prince by dying or leaving. He just could not stay.