80 pages • 2 hours read
The Little Prince
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Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
As the pilot and prince stand by the well, the prince talks about the pointlessness of people boarding trains without knowing what they're seeking. Ignoring the pilot's confusion over finding a village well in the Sahara, the prince begins to tug at the pulley. It begins to "groan," and the prince says that the well has "awakened" and is "singing" (69).
Worried that the bucket is too heavy for the prince, the pilot takes over hauling it up. As the prince drinks, the pilot suddenly realizes what the purpose of their search was: "The water was more than merely a drink. It was born of our walk beneath the stars, of the song of the pulley, of the effort of my arms. It did the heart good, like a present" (71). The prince then remarks that humans on Earth "grow five thousand roses in one garden" without realizing that "what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water" (71). The pilot agrees, and the prince says that people need to "look with the heart" (71).
A little later, after drinking from the well himself, the pilot unexpectedly begins to feel sad. Just then, the prince reminds him of his promise to draw a muzzle for his sheep. The pilot accordingly begins taking out all his drawings, and the prince laughs as he does so, remarking that the baobabs look like cabbages and the fox's ears look like horns. The pilot reminds him that he never learned to draw, but the prince assures him that children will understand regardless.
When the pilot finishes his drawing of the muzzle, he accuses the prince of planning to leave. The prince doesn’t answer directly but notes that he fell to Earth exactly one year ago tomorrow, close to where they are now. Feeling sad again, the pilot asks whether the prince had been deliberately traveling back to this spot when they first met, and the prince blushes. The pilot begins to express concerns, but the prince brushes him off, telling him to work on his engine and return the next night.
Chapter 26 Summary
The next evening, the pilot returns to find the prince sitting on a wall speaking to someone, telling his listener to follow him to a particular place and then asking whether the listener's poison is fast-acting. Alarmed, the pilot sees that the prince is speaking to a deadly snake and prepares to shoot it. The snake hears the pilot and slithers away.
The prince hops down from the wall and accepts water from the pilot, who tries to ask him about what is happening. The prince simply says he's glad the pilot fixed his engine and explains that he is also leaving, but that his way is "much further" and "much more difficult" (74). He attempts to assure the pilot that he has the drawings to take with him, but his voice is sad, and when the pilot points out that he seems "frightened" (76), the prince admits that he'll be even more frightened later that night.
Distraught, the pilot says he wants to hear the prince laugh again, and questions whether this isn't all a "bad dream" (76). The prince doesn't respond to this and instead notes how it's been a year since he arrived on Earth. Reminding the pilot of the importance of what's "invisible" (63), the prince speaks of his planet: "It's too small, where I live, for me to show you where my star is. It's better that way. My star will be…one of the stars, for you. So you'll like looking at all of them" (77). The pilot agrees with all of this, but also remarks that he loves the prince's laugh. The prince says that is part of his "present" (77)to the pilot: when he looks at the stars, they themselves will seem to be laughing.
The prince repeatedly tells the pilot he should go, warning him that it will look as though he (the prince) is dying, but that he is really only leaving his body behind because it is "too heavy" (79)to take with him. The pilot refuses to leave, even when the prince attempts to slip away unseen. Through tears, the prince once again reassures the pilot that the stars will bring him joy after the prince himself is gone.
Eventually, they reach their destination, and the prince reiterates that he is "responsible" for his flower, who only "has four ridiculous thorns to defend her against the world" (80). He then goes on alone. The pilot sees a "yellow flash" (81)at the prince's ankle as the snake bites him, and he watches as the prince falls to the ground.
Chapter 27 Summary
It is now six years since the prince left, and the pilot is only now telling his story. When he first returned from the desert, he explained away his sadness as exhaustion. Now he can think back on the prince with less pain, knowing that the prince did in fact reach his planet since by dawn, the prince's body had disappeared. As the prince predicted, the pilot also enjoys "listening to the stars" (81).
One thing worries the pilot, however: he forgot to draw a strap for the muzzle, so it's possible the sheep has eaten the flower. He tries to reassure himself that the prince keeps the flower under glass, but sometimes he wonders whether the prince might forget one night. When that happens, "the bells [of the stars] are all changed into tears" (83).
This is "all a great mystery" (83), according to the pilot. He says that if his readers look at the sky and ask themselves whether the sheep has eaten the flower, they will share his sense that everything has changed, although "no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!" (83).
Finally, the pilot refers to a drawing of an empty desert overlooked by a solitary star, calling it "the loveliest and the saddest landscape in the world" (85). He then asks his readers to memorize the image so that they can pause beneath that star if they ever find themselves in the desert. He further instructs the readers to notify him if they happen to meet the prince there.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
Much of the last few chapters of The Little Prince is ambiguous—most notably, the prince's ultimate fate. It's not entirely clear whether the prince succeeds in returning to his planet or if he simply dies, although the pilot, at least, believes the former. What is clear is that he is lost to the pilot, and the pilot feels that loss deeply. The suggestion that the sheep might have eaten the rose further underscores the ending's ambiguity and pathos: even assuming that the prince did return safely to his planet, he might have done so only to lose the very flower who inspired him to go back. In other words, The Little Prince concludes on a note that emphasizes the fragility of both life and the relationships formed in life.
The tone of the book as a whole is bittersweet rather than tragic. Despite the fact that loss is likely or even inevitable, love and friendship are nevertheless depicted as worth the pain. It is often precisely the fact that experiences are impermanent that gives them their significance since the time invested in them is finite and therefore precious. The pilot remarks, for instance, that the time spent on the "walk beneath the stars" (71)is part of what makes the well water so pleasurable and refreshing. Furthermore, these experiences—relationships in particular—are what allow life to be something beyond a mere struggle to survive because they add depth and meaning to what would otherwise seem inconsequential. Just as the fox comes to associate the prince with "the sound of the wind in the wheat" (60), the pilot hears the stars laughing after meeting the prince. The fact that this meaning is specific to the pilot—as the prince puts it, everyone else has "silent stars"(77)—further highlights the significance of the transformation the pilot has undergone within the context of his friendship with the prince. In a sense, he has only now become a complete and unique individual.
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