This Week's Showdown: French vs. American Literature

I'm in French 4, and we are currently studying Antoine de Saint-Exupery's iconic novel Le Petit Prince.  While most Americans know of this book, few have actually read it.  Most just assume that it is a children's book, and to a certain extent, they are right.

On the surface, Le Petit Prince is a cute story of a little kid who travels the universe to learn about life.  But on a deeper level, it is a criticism of the gap between children and adults just about every other flaw the author finds in human nature.  For instance, when the little prince visits a man who is obsessed with counting the stars, thinking that because nobody has claimed them yet they all belong to him, and that he must find out how many he has in order to determine their worth.

Le Petit Prince is comparable to several American classics, but the connection that I made as soon as I began reading it was to The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster.  The Phantom Tollbooth is another children's book that can be interpreted on many levels, starring a boy named Milo who goes to the Lands of beyond, where he meets all sorts of characters and places that are representations and criticisms of human nature, among other things.  For example, when Milo stops thinking on the Road of Expectations, he ends up in the doldrums, a place where people are encouraged not to think.  This is a criticism of oppression and the limited freedoms experienced by some, as well as of the human tendency to want to follow rather than to lead.