The Little Prince which was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and was published in 1943 during the World War II, is my favourite great book. Although the story is simple, but it enlighten me so much. The story started with the author's plane was forced down in the Sahara, a thousand miles from help, he encountered an extraordinary little prince, who was a lonely person who lived on a little planet, B612. He left his planet and started to travel. He passed through various stars, encountered with various forms of human vanity in six other asteroids, he felt lonely in his entire journey. Afterwards, he came to the Sahara on the earth, made friends with the author and tamed a fox, from then on he no longer felt lonely. Finally, he went back to his planet with the help of a snake. From review of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, This is a book that can be read by both children and adults. It has a message of love that is true and touching, and it is a book that has stood the test of time.1.
Hence, how can The Little Prince obtain these good reviews and made a great effects even if it seems like only a book for children? In my view, this is related to the ingenious uses of the simple symbolism to express difficult ideas which arouse us self-examine as an adult. Symbolism means the use of symbols, especially in literature, film, art, etc in 19th century France. 2 A symbol is anything which signifies anything, in this sense, all words are symbols, but used in criticism, however, 'symbol', is applied only to a word or a phrase signifying an object which itself has significance, that is, the object referred to has a range of meaning beyond itself. In symbolism symbols can be categorized according to use and origin. Some images, developed by some writers become 'private symbols', which set a more difficult problem in interpretation. Images repeated in a genre become 'public symbols', which are widely known.