摘 要

《小王子》是法国作家圣·埃克苏佩里最著名的作品。小说以飞行员的角度叙述了小王子离开自己的星球后在几个不同星球的经历，重点描写了来到地球后，小王子与蛇、狐狸以及飞行员的相处，从而明白什么是爱、责任和生命。《彼得·潘》是20世纪英国剧作家兼小说家詹姆斯·巴利的经典作品。故事讲述了永远长不大的彼得·潘在梦幻岛上的冒险生活。虽然两个主人公都追求纯真，但在面对爱的问题上，小王子最终明白了爱的真谛，而彼得·潘始终不懂爱却又对爱抱着渴望的态度。作为儿童文学中写给成人的童话，两部作品中的主人公有着相似之处，但他们的结局是完全不同的，其相似性与差异性值得研究。本文将对两个男主人公进行分析比较，探讨两部作品中主人公形象的相同与不同之处。本文主要分为四个部分，第一部分简要介绍两部作品及其作者。第二部分通过分析两个主人公来比较他们在价值观和感情观上的相似性和差异性。第三部分讨论形成二人相似性和差异性的原因，包括个人原因和社会原因。最后一部分总结本文主要内容，得出以下结论：虽然二者有相似性，但由于受到作者的背景和价值观的决定性影响，二者的结局截然不同，因而其差异性更值得反思。

关键词：《小王子》；《彼得·潘》；小王子；彼得·潘；比较

Abstract

The Little Prince is the most well-known work of the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It narrates the experiences of the little prince in several different planets after leaving his planet from the perspective of the pilot and mainly focuses on his contact with the snake, the fox and the pilot. Thus, he understands love, responsibility and life. Peter Pan is the classic of the British novelist and playwright James Barrie in the 20^th century. The story describes Peter Pan’s magical adventures in the Neverland. Although they both pursue the purity, the two heroes have different attitudes towards love. The little prince finally understands the meaning of love, while Peter Pan does not understand how to love others but wants to be loved. As two fairy tales written for adults in children’s literature, the two heroes have similarities while their endings are totally different. So it is worth making a comparative study. This paper makes a comparative analysis between the two heroes and studies the factors for their similarities and differences. The paper is divided into four parts. The first part is the brief introduction to the two works and their authors. The second part is the analysis of two heroes as well as the similarities and differences of their values and views on love. The third part explores the factors leading to their similarities and differences, including personal factors and social factors. The last part is the conclusion that differences are more worthy of reflection than similarities due to the determinant influence of the authors’ backgrounds and values, which also lead to their different endings.

Key Words: The Little Prince; Peter Pan; the little prince; Peter Pan; comparison

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Antoine de Saint- Exupéry and The Little Prince 1

1.2 J.M.Barrie and Peter Pan 2

1.3 Literature Review 3

2 Similarities and Differences between the Little Prince and Peter Pan 5

2.1 The Little Prince’s image 5

2.2 Peter Pan’s image 6

2.3 Similarities in their pursuit of purity 7

2.4 Differences in their views on love 8

3 Factors for Their Similarities and Differences 10

3.1 Factors for their similarities 10

3.1.1 The influence of social situation 10

3.1.2 The influence of personalities and thoughts 11

3.2 Factors for their differences 12

3.2.1 Heroes of different experiences 12

3.2.2 Authors of different backgrounds and values 13

4 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

A Comparative Study of Two Heroes in The Little Prince and Peter Pan

1 Introduction

The Little Prince is written by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who is also well-known as a pilot and poet. Peter Pan, written by the Scottish playwright and novelist J. M. Barrie, is one of the most famous novels in the 20^th century in Britain. These two books are thought of as fairy tales written for adults. They are of great value in the study of people’s psychological state and social environment of that time. This part is a brief introduction to the two literary works and their authors, as well as literature review.

1.1 Antoine de Saint- Exupéry and The Little Prince

Saint-Exupéry was born in a French declining aristocratic family in Lyon in 1900. He dreamed of being a pilot when he was young and later he was fortunate to enlist in the Air Force. After his retirement, Saint-Exupéry entered an airline. During this period, with the publication of Night Flight (1931), he achieved great success and soon became a new star in the literary world. When the Second World War broke out, he rejoined the French Air Force and soon escaped to North America. The Little Prince was written at this time.

Translated into 300 languages and dialects, the novella has been the best book of the 20^th century in France. It is a philosophical tale which includes the author’s critique of the adult world. The narrator of the story is a pilot and he is not understood until he meets a young prince visiting Earth from a little planet. On Earth, the little prince meets the snake, the fox and talks about his rose, his little planet with the pilot. Thus, he understands love, responsibility and life.

As the same with the narrator, the little prince always thinks about what adults think is useless. However, the useless things contain some profound truths which adults usually ignore because of being carried away by material desire. Therefore, it causes the impassable gulf between children and them. They cannot understand their children, forcing the kids to follow their will so that adults and children have a more and more distant relationship.

There is an interesting dedication (to the author’s friend Leon Werth) on the title page of the book: “I ask the forbearance of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up” (de Saint- Exupéry, 1995). Why does the author delicate such a fairy tale to an adult? The answer is that this book is indeed written for adults. It is a book that reminds adults not to get lost and only adults can understand its meaning.

The book, in simple and naive words, reveals the inanity, blindness, foolishness and rigid dogma of the adults, and shows the loneliness of human through the eyes of the little prince. At the same time, it also expresses the author’s critique of evil in the adult world and eulogizes the goodness and the purity of children.

1.2 J.M.Barrie and Peter Pan

Sir James Matthew Barrie was born in a conservative family in Kirriemuir, Angus in 1860. He had dreamt of being an author since he was young. However, his family wanted him to be a minister. He finally made a compromise to enter a university to study literature and then moved to London, where he began his career as an author and wrote a lot of successful novels and plays. There in Kensington Gardens, he was inspired to write the Peter Pan.

At first, Peter Pan was a stage play and gave a public performance in 1904. Then in 1911, the Peter Pan play was adapted for the novel. The story describes Peter Pan’s magical adventures in the Neverland with three children of Mr. Darling, Lost Boys and Tinker Bell. They live with fairies, pirates, mermaids, and the redskin Indians. In a word, Neverland is a miraculous and wonderful world. Moreover, all the children go through various dangers such as the wars against the pirates. However, one day, the children want to go back home. And in the end, they all leave the Neverland and grow up except Peter Pan. He flies around the world and brings new generations of children to the Neverland (Wang, 2016). “And thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless. (Barrie, 2007, p.178)”

The work in fact is nostalgia for the childhood. On the one hand, it describes a truly pure world of children in vivid words, and it shows that childhood is the most beautiful and precious stage in our life. On the other hand, the author regrets that though childhood is beautiful, it cannot be retained. From childhood to adulthood, people not only lose their childhood and innocence, but also depress their personality and distort their nature. The existence of Peter Pan shows that people have a complete and eternal childhood and childlike innocence. This childlike innocence makes people feel relaxed and joyful, forget the hypocrisy and emptiness of the adult world, and obtain spiritual comfort (Geng, 2014).

1.3 Literature Review

Appreciating that The Little Prince and Peter Pan are two great literary works, the scholars all over the world have explored them from many perspectives and have made many achievements. However, there are few researches on the comparison between the two books. Most researches focus on one of them. The overseas researches about the two works are very few but interesting. One of them representatively regards Peter Pan as the Ferenczian child (Bar-Haim, S, 2015), who had not been loved in their early childhood, and therefore could not develop the capacity to make the journey from pleasure principle to that of reality. One held that Peter Pan can be understood as a character that embodies the narcissistic need of some individuals to retreat from the realities of the adult world (Boulton, N, 2006). For The Little Prince, one of the researchers studied the work to analyze child’s psychology and behavior (Ablon, S, 1989).

Luckily, domestic scholars’ studies flourish on it. In the aspect of art, some researches focus on symbolism and metaphors such as the rose, the fox (Shi，2017), the Neverland and the children (Wang，2016), as well as the aesthetic value (Wu，2006) in The Little Prince. In philosophy and sociology, some researches study The Little Prince to analyze the existentialism (Zuo，2017) and the exploration of alienation (Guo，2016). Besides, some researches pay attention to translation, especially different versions of The Little Prince (Guo，2016) and the translation of Peter Pan from the reception theory (Wang，2015). What’s more, many researchers study Peter Pan from the perspective of the myth (Cui，2013) which refers to “Pan” in Greek mythological stories. In addition, in psychology, Peter Pan has become a syndrome called “the Peter Pan syndrome”, which refers to the men who do not want to grow up (Zhong，2008).