The Little Prince - The Alchemist

These two books, The Little Prince and The Alchemist were written by authors from different corners of the world and were published during different epochs. The Little Prince was first published in France early in the twentieth century, while The Alchemist was originally written in Brazil towards the end of that century. However, as Gazeta Wymborcza from Poland observes, “The Alchemist brings to mind The Little Prince by Saint–Exupéry.”1 Although we are listening to different voices in the two novels, yet when unravelling the fundamental message, we realize there is an amazing similarity in both theme and approach.

Both authors have opted for narrative voices of young or small people whose words are usually dismissed by adults. Even before the end of each novel, the reader realizes that the authors deliberately have chosen these voices that are so easily disregarded. They have done so in order to sharpen their poignancy in bringing us down from our ivory towers of narrow–mindedness, self-righteousness, egocentricity and spiritual sterility. In The Little Prince we listen to the narrative voice of a little person who sounds like a child, while in The Alchemist we are made to hear the message from a boy.

What is also common to both authors is their emphasis on the soul, the heart and the intrinsic spirit of being and of relationships. For instance, in The Little Prince the author satirizes the way in which we evaluate our friends. We are not interested in how they feel; we do not wish to know their anxieties, their aspirations, their greatest concerns. We live in a world where statistics and material things have become more important than human beings and human relationships. Saint-Exupéry rightly observes that our love of numbers leads us into “weighing” and “measuring” people with questions such as “how much money does his father make?” (The Little Prince, p. 16)

Saint-Exupéry contends that relationships based on statistics, material matters or factors external to people’s inner selves, are empty. This point is emphasized further by the profundity of the relationship between the little prince and his rose, and also by the depth of the friendship that develops between the little prince and the fox. Coelho takes a similar view when the boy decides he cannot find God in the seminary and therefore has to undertake a pilgrimage as a simple shepherd. Coelho’s presentation of the relationship that develops between the boy and his sheep reminds the reader of the little prince’s relationship with his rose. There is a mysterious force that seems to bind the boy to his sheep and though each speaks a different language they operate from an understanding that draws the one to the other.

The two authors seem to be telling us that something has gone wrong in the relationships between fellow human beings.

What is it that has gone wrong? What do Saint-Exupéry and Coelho see as the major tragedy of our existence? Saint-Exupéry feels we have made the world around us ugly through extreme conformity in the name of “attending to matters of consequence,” (The Little Prince, p. 42, 52). We are too lazy to tend to our planet and pull out the weeds that threaten to destroy our mother, the earth.

Like Saint-Exupéry, Coelho sees conformity as having killed initiative and throttled creativity. Conformity has led us into dictating how others should lead their lives instead of engaging in the kind of self-examination that could reveal to us where we ourselves have gone wrong. The author makes a very strong point on this when he says: “If someone isn’t what others want him to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own” (The Alchemist, p. 16).

The two authors’ major criticism is that we have become dehumanised through emphasis on material things for their own sake. They see this as having led to hypocrisy and spiritual sterility. In both novels, we are led to see that in order to find a solution to the major tragedies in the world we must come to realize the key role played by the heart. Just as the little prince in Saint-Exupéry’s novel realizes that what he has been looking for in the desert is water that is good for the heart, so the boy in Coelho’s novel realizes that the treasure he has been looking for in the desert is not some precious stone but something that is hidden in his own heart.

The major role of creative writers is to act as social thermometers. The pen is their stethoscope and they use it to comment on society’s ills. Both Saint-Exupéry and Coelho use the allegorical mode to diagnose our social malaise. The Little Prince and The Alchemist are told in a deliberately simple style in order to expose our self-deception. Both novels are in the form of journeys through the desert of life and readers are invited to join the protagonists on their journey of self-discovery and spiritual regeneration.