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Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince


            Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a notable aviator and author, was born on June 29th, 1900 in Lyon, France to an aristocratic family. The third of five children, his parents were the Count Jean de Saint Exupery and the Countess Marie de Fonscolombe. His first novella, entitled L'Aviateur (The Aviator), was published in a literary magazine known as le Navire dargent. On December 30th, 1935, Saint-Exupery's plane crashed in the Sahara desert when he, along with his mechanic-navigator, was attempting to break the speed record in a Paris-to-Saigon air race. The Little Prince, his most famous novella, was published in 1943.
             According to Sigmund Freud, the mind is divided into three primary psychic zones known as the id, the ego, and the superego. The id, known as the pleasure principle, is the part of the mind where innate instinctive impulses and primary processes are manifest. It is said to contain a person's deepest desires and fears. The superego acts as a self-critical conscience that reflects society's standards. And finally, the ego, commonly referred to as the reality principle, is responsible for keeping the id and the superego balanced and in check.
             In the beginning of the novel, the narrator was faced with the decision of whether or not he wanted to follow his superego or his id. This was manifested when he drew his interpretation of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant whole and when he showed it to the grown-ups they merely brushed him off and told him to instead devote his time to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. If he were to follow his id, he would have set the adults musings aside and aspired to become a notable painter, but since he chose to listen to his superego, he eventually gave painting up and became a pilot.
             The Prince is Saint-Exupery's id personified. He serves as the authors wants as a child. Since Saint-Exupery grew up in a well-off family, probably the adults around him were strict about what they wanted to see from him.


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