The pilot learns much from the Little Prince, and readers can take away a lesson from their relationship. As the Little Prince fills the pilot in on his travels, he reveals many lessons about the foibles of humanity. Grown-ups rush this way and that without enjoying their journeys or knowing what they want. Some search for meaning in praise, power, or ownership. None of those pursuits impress the Little Prince.
It is the fox who ultimately teaches the Little Prince the lesson that is most meaningful to him and to the pilot. The fox allows the Little Prince to tame him, and his description of being tamed is surprisingly close to the description of loving and being loved. The fox says:
But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring...
Unlock
This Answer NowStart your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat.
The Little Prince realizes that the fox's lesson explains the relationship between himself and his rose. She is the most special rose in the universe because he has tamed her, and "you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
The fox also explains that what is truly valuable is invisible—namely, love. He shares his secret with the Little Prince on their last day together:
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
The lesson that the pilot and the Little Prince teach readers is that the most important thing in life is loving and being loved. Love changes everything and gives everything a richer, deeper meaning—even something as minor as whether a drawing of a muzzle has a leather strap.
The most important lesson we learn from the pilot and the prince is that it is the things unseen that are most important. The pilot's drawing of a boa constrictor from the outside digesting an elephant was imperative to the pilot because it contained a secret, the enclosed elephant. The prince's fox teaches him that "what is essential is invisible to the eye" (Ch. 17). The prince looks longingly up at the sky and found the stars to be beautiful because up among the millions of stars was his own planet holding his precious flower that cannot be seen, as we see in his line, "The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen" (Ch. 24). When the prince and the pilot go out in search of a well, the prince calls the desert beautiful because "somewhere it hides a well" (Ch. 24). Finally, the pilot, even though the prince is physically beautiful, finds the prince to be exceptionally beautiful because of what's inside the prince, such as his heart, his wisdom, and his faithful love for a flower that can't be seen, as we see the pilot reflecting in his lines as he carries the prince through the desert in search of a well:
What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible ... What moves me so deeply ... is his loyalty to a flower. (Ch. 24)
Hence we see that the most important lesson the pilot and the prince teach us is that it is the things unseen, the spiritual world of love and faithfulness, that is important, rather than the corporeal world.
What moral lesson is conveyed in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery?
One of the many moral lessons we can derive from The Little Prince is the importance of retaining a child-like view of the universe and our place within it. As adults, we all too often lose that sense of wonder we had in our formative years and which made us look at the world in a completely different way. The transition to adulthood inevitably leads to the world's becoming disenchanted, evacuated of all mystery. As a consequence, our whole outlook on life becomes much narrower, less imaginative.
That is certainly the position that the aviator finds himself in. For him, seeing is believing. He cannot therefore conceive of anything beneath the surface, of all the wondrous insights conveyed by the heart and the imagination. In other words, he's a typical adult. Back in the so-called civilized world that may be all well and good, but out here in the desert, it's a different matter entirely. If the aviator is to survive in this literal and spiritual waste land, he needs to follow the example of the little prince and think, not just with his brain, but with his heart, his soul, his entire being. In short, he needs to get in touch with his inner child.
The moral lesson conveyed in The Little Prince is that life is only worth living when it is lived for others, not for oneself. The Little Prince lives on his asteroid in peace, taking care of his volcanoes and watching his sunsets. One day a rose appears on his asteroid, and he is intrigued by her, but he soon becomes offended by her conceit and her false words. He leaves her. On his travels, which ultimately lead him to Earth, he has a chance to view and evaluate many types of people. Most of the people he meets live only for themselves and don't invest their lives in anyone else. The king wants only to command. The conceited man lives only to be admired. The tippler only wants to drink so he can forget that he is ashamed of his drinking. The businessman wants to own everything without being of any use to the things he owns. What all these men have in common is that they are completely selfish, living only for themselves.
When he reaches the planet of the lamplighter, he summarizes: "That man ... is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides himself."
The farther away he gets from his flower, the more he realizes that it was his job to appreciate and protect her, not to get something from her. But when he comes to the garden of roses, he cries because he thinks his flower is not unique, as she had told him.
The fox is the one who teaches the Little Prince the moral lesson clearly. He teaches him what it means to be tamed by someone--which is basically growing to love that person. After taming the fox, the Little Prince realizes that his rose is unique, because she is his rose, and he cares for her. The fox then shares his secret:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ... You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."
This secret sums up the moral lesson of the book: Life is meaningful when it is filled with caring relationships.
What lessons do we learn from the pilot in The Little Prince?
One of the most important lessons we learn from the
pilot is to look beyond the corporeal. We
learn in the very first couple of chapters that the pilot struggled in his life
because he saw things in a way that others could not see them. As we see from
his "Drawing Number One," a person is only able to discern that it is a picture
of a boa constrictor from the outside digesting an elephant if one pays close
attention and notices the small details, such as the eyes of the snake and the
shape of the shape of the elephant. Since the elephant is not truly
seen, except in silhouette form, we see that this drawing is a lesson
of seeing things beyond the obvious and beyond the corporeal.
In addition, we learn that the pilot has shown his drawing to people throughout
his life in order to determine if he or she is a "person of true understanding"
(Ch. 1).
A second lesson we learn from the pilot is
actually one the pilot learns from the prince himself. The pilot learns that,
while he has always had an appreciation for the things unseen, he too has
allowed himself to get swept away by things of less importance, just like the
grown-ups. The prince has reached a very strong understanding that the
things that really matter are what can't be seen, such as love
and faithfulness. At one point the prince begins to worry about whether or not
his drawing of a sheep in a box would eat his flower. The pilot replies that he
is "very busy with matters of consequence!" (Ch. 7). The prince responds with a
rational argument that portrays his love for his flower, even though he cannot
see his flower because she is far away on one of millions of stars. He further
argues that just the mere thought that his flower could be threatened by the
sheep is a matter of great consequence, as we see in his lines:
If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, "Somewhere, my flower is there..." But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened...And you think that is not important! (Ch. 7)
Hence, we see that the little prince's speech teaches that what is truly important are the things unseen. In addition, the pilot accepts and teaches this lesson himself when he lets his tools drop from his hands in order to comfort his prince, the one he loves, showing us that what really matters are the things unseen, such as love.
What lessons can we learn from the pilot in The Little Prince?
The lessons we learn from the pilot
actually greatly overlap with the lessons we learn from the prince because the
pilot learns so much from the prince as well. Both teach the importance of
spirituality, that things that are important in this world are the things
unseen, the things connected to spirituality, such as love, trust, and faith.
However, one thing we do learn first from the pilot, although the price
reiterates the point later, is that what's on the outside is really
just an unimportant shell.
The pilot first has this revelation when he and the prince go in search of a
well in the desert. By the end of the chapter, the prince has fallen asleep
while the pilot presses on. The pilot carries the sleeping boy in his arms. As
he carries him he thinks to himself that he is carrying a "very fragile
treasure" and admires the prince's external beauty, such as his "pale forehead"
and his "locks of [golden] hair that trembled in the wind" (Ch. 24). However,
the pilot says to himself that all of that physical beauty is really "nothing
but a shell" and further states that "what is most important is invisible,"
which again ties back to the lessons learned throughout the book that the
things of the spiritual world are what's truly valuable.
Therefore, two lessons we learn from the pilot in this chapter
are that the things of the external world are really just empty
shells, and that it's what's on the inside that is truly
important.