Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince, Chapitre I
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CHAPITRE I
Lorsque j’avais six ans j’ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image, dans un livre sur la Forêt Vierge qui s’appelait « Histoires Vécues ». Ca représentait un serpent boa qui avalait un fauve. Voilà la copie du dessin…
On disait dans le livre: « Les serpents boas avalent leur proie tout entière, sans la mâcher. Ensuite ils ne peuvent plus bouger et ils dorment pendant les six mois de leur digestion ». J’ai alors beaucoup réfléchi sur les aventures de la jungle et, à mon tour, j’ai réussi, avec un crayon de couleur, à tracer mon premier dessin. Mon dessin numéro 1. Il était comme ça…
J’ai montré mon chef d’œuvre aux grandes personnes et je leur ai demandé si mon dessin leur faisait peur. Elles m’ont répondu: « Pourquoi un chapeau ferait-il peur? « Mon dessin ne représentait pas un chapeau. Il représentait un serpent boa qui digérait un éléphant. J’ai alors dessiné l’intérieur du serpent boa, afin que les grandes personnes puissent comprendre. Elles ont toujours besoin d’explications. Mon dessin numéro 2 était comme ça…
Les grandes personnes m’ont conseillé de laisser de côté les dessins de serpents boas ouverts ou fermés, et de m’intéresser plutôt à la géographie, à l’histoire, au calcul et à la grammaire. C’est ainsi que j’ai abandonné, à l’âge de six ans, une magnifique carrière de peinture. J’avais été découragé par l’insuccès de mon dessin numéro 1 et de mon dessin numéro 2. Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours leur donner des explications.
J’ai donc dû choisir un autre métier et j’ai appris à piloter des avions. J’ai volé un peu partout dans le monde. Et la géographie, c’est exact, m’a beaucoup servi. Je savais reconnaître, du premier coup d’œil, la Chine de l’Arizona. C’est utile, si l’on est égaré pendant la nuit.
Quand j’en rencontrais une qui me paraissait un peu lucide, je faisais l’expérience sur elle de mon dessin no. 1 que j’ai toujours conservé. Je voulais savoir si elle était vraiment compréhensive. Mais toujours elle me répondait: « C’est un chapeau. » Alors je ne lui parlais ni de serpents boas, ni de forêts vierges, ni d’étoiles. Je me mettais à sa portée. Je lui parlais de bridge, de golf, de politique et de cravates. Et la grande personne était bien contente de connaître un homme aussi raisonnable.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince, (1943), Chapitre premier.
Introduction
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry (June 29, 1900, Lyon – July 31, 1944 disappeared in flight) was a French writer and aviator. His experience as an aviation pioneer and war pilot will give him all the legitimacy to deliver his main message: it is by surpassing oneself that one becomes a Man. If it is not entirely autobiographical, his work is largely inspired by his life as an airmail pilot, except for Le Petit Princ e – probably his most popular success – which is rather a poetic and philosophical tale.
The little Princewas published in New York in 1943 and, for technical reasons, the « watercolors of the author » reproduced in the French versions which followed were only reprogramming of the American edition, which led to a significant loss of quality . In addition, some designs had been modified slightly. The recently published Folio edition was apparently the first to provide illustrations conforming to the original edition, of much better technical and artistic quality despite a smaller format (printing techniques have also made progress since 1943).
Even if we don’t know that Saint-Exupéry was 43 years old when he wrote The Little Prince, we immediately learn that he is no longer « six years old »: we thought so,
Because the captivating charm of the first two pages is due to a subtle fusion between naivety and humor, on the one hand, and insight and gravity, on the other. This mixture, accentuated by the presence of the drawings, did Saint-Exupéry really leave the world of children to become a « big person » among all the others?
I. An opening marked by humor and naivety
1. The expression of humor
The drawings are inseparable from the text, since Saint-Exupéry makes several allusions and references to them: « Here is the copy of the drawing », « my first drawing » « My drawing number 1 », « I asked them if my drawing frightened them » …
Humor is born from the gap between what we want to suggest and the result.
Drawings 1 and 3 evoke the confrontation (the heads are represented in opposite directions). Now the boa looks like a bowler hat and the elephant of a toy under a blanket in the drawing, hence the need for an explanatory legend because without it, we would understand nothing.
Drawing 1: for the child, it is a mysterious, horrible struggle, a frightening symbol of domination. However, the beast with the raised eyebrows and the small brushed mustache resembles a mouse as much as an adult.
For the child, digestion lasts six months, the beast is swallowed whole (this is the message of the book « Lived Stories »). For adults, the open or closed boa has something dry and definitive like a can.
2. The manifestation of naivety
The naivety, delicious, accentuates the effect of shift or phase shift.
The passage looks like a tale for a child, told by a child, but it is Saint-Exupéry who speaks of and for the child that he is no longer.
It thus creates a fresh and charming duplication (we find a little the same effect in Candide by Voltaire).
The child does not play with synonyms: when the word is correct, he often repeats it « snake boa », « swallows a beast », « magnificent ».
The child also uses spoken language: « he was like that », he often says « I » because the child considers himself a bit like the center of the world, he is talkative and does not condense by the essential « to understand », « Always », « heaps … ».
He handles the dialogue which is more alive than an abstract presentation would be and uses juxtapositions: « I showed my masterpiece to grown-ups and I asked them … »; “My drawing did not represent a hat. It represented a boa snake … « .
Here, the tone suggests a gentle and serious child, he expects to impress: he has a memory, a taste, precocious, for « Lived Stories ». He manifests a desire for domination and the art of gesture. Very educational, the child shows, draws, questions (« I asked them if … ») and resumes (« grown-ups » « always need explanations »).
Transition : Now, to this child fascinated by the struggle of big cats, we observe that a hat « does not scare »! One can imagine his dismay in front of these grown-ups who never understand anything the first time. And one realizes that laughter is born precisely from the incomprehension of the two worlds: that of childhood and that of adults. It takes the tender humor of Saint-Exupéry to make people think about data seen with insight and gravity.