80 pages • 2 hours read
The Little Prince
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Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
Traveling on, the prince encountered a railway switchman and asked him about his work. The switchman explained that he simply sent trains either to the right or to the left, not knowing anything about what the passengers on the trains were ultimately hoping to find. Two trains passed by even as the prince and the switchman were talking, and the prince, learning that the people on the second train were not the same as those on the first, asked whether people weren't "satisfied, where they were" (65). A third train then passed, and the prince asked if it was "chasing the first travelers" (65). The switchmen said no, and that of all the passengers, only the children were actually paying attention to their surroundings. The prince remarked that this was because "only the children know what they're looking for"—e.g. a doll they're attached to—and the switchman, agreeing, said that the children were "lucky" (65).
Chapter 23 Summary
Next, the prince encountered a salesclerk selling pills to quench thirst. When the prince asked what the point of these pills was, the clerk replied that they could save up to 53 minutes every week. The prince replied how if he had 53 free minutes, he would "walk very slowly toward a water fountain" (66).
Chapter 24 Summary
The prince tells the pilot about the salesclerk on the eighth day after the plane crash. The pilot remarks that he would also like to walk toward a water fountain, and then interrupts when the prince once more begins to talk about the fox: what really matters, the pilot says, is the fact that they're going to die of dehydration. The prince replies, "It's good to have had a friend, even if you're going to die" (67). At first, the pilot thinks that the prince simply doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation, but the prince then says he's also thirsty and suggests looking for a well.
The pilot and prince are still searching when night falls. The pilot tries to ask the prince about his thirst, but the prince simply replies, "Water can also be good for the heart" (67), further confusing the pilot. The pair sit down to rest, and the prince continues to speak, saying that "the stars are beautiful because of a flower you don't see" (68), and the desert is beautiful because there is a well in it somewhere. The pilot has always found the desert beautiful, and thinking back to a story about buried treasure that "cast a spell" (68)over his childhood home, realizes the prince is right. Aloud, he says that "what makes [things] beautiful is invisible" (68), and the prince is happy the pilot agrees with the fox.
The prince then falls asleep, and the pilot picks him up and carries him, feeling as though he is "more fragile" (68)than anything else in the world. Thinking about what the prince said, he realizes he is touched by the prince's love for his flower and how that love makes him so fragile. Finally, at dawn, the pilot finds a well.
Chapters 22-24 Analysis
As the story approaches its conclusion, Saint-Exupéry begins to pull several major themes together. The prince's anecdote about the salesclerk is particularly significant, touching again on ideas of consumerism, meaning, and the passage of time. The pill that quenches thirst puzzles the prince not only because it replaces a pleasurable experience—drinking water—with a bland one, but also because saving time in that way removes much of what is meaningful about the experience of drinking. When the pilot and prince finally arrive at a well, the pilot notes that the water isn't just a means of quenching their thirst, but rather a culmination of all the work that has gone into searching for it and drawing it. In other words, the time the pilot and prince have invested in the water gives it deeper significance, perhaps because in a world where most things are "ephemeral" (46), time itself is one of the most valuable things a person can give. This is similar to the idea that what makes relationships meaningful is the vulnerability they entail, which resurfaces here in the pilot's thoughts about the prince's "fragility" as the product of his love for the flower. In fact, this fragility turns out to be physical as well as emotional, since the prince ultimately sacrifices his life (or at least his body) in order to return to the flower. For the prince, mere physical survival is ultimately less important than living a meaningful life, complete with love and friendship. As he tells the pilot as the latter worries about their dwindling water supply: "It's good to have had a friend, even if you're going to die" (67).
Meanwhile, Saint-Exupéry continues to use the motif of sight and invisibility to explore these questions of meaning. The prince argues that the desert and the stars derive their beauty from what's hidden within them—the well and the flower, respectively. To paraphrase the fox, these things are "invisible" (68) only in a physical sense; intuitively, both the prince and the pilot "see" the well and flower in the overall splendor of the scene. Once again, however, it's clear that most of society does not share this ability to see what is truly worthwhile. In the exchange between the prince and the railway switchman, it's significant that only the children on the train are looking at their surroundings. This is an indication that they are the only ones who truly know where they're going, in the sense that they grasp what is actually meaningful.
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