In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novella The Little Prince, children and adults are opposites due to their creativity. Adults failed to see the importance of imagination by not seeing the things that are invisible and were always occupied with “matters of consequence” (Exupéry 43). Although to be an adult you need to be responsible, the adults in this novella only portray their responsibility towards materialistic things and the things they possess. While “The Little Prince” and the pilot as a child were filled with imagination, they were able to understand the importance of responsibility through love and the relationships they have with people and nature.
I will be in conversation with literary scholar Luke Glanville in, “On the Meaning of ‘Responsibility’ in the ‘Responsibility to Protect’,” discussing the importance of responsibility. Luke Glanville argues that responsibility is exclusive to protection and accountability. Also, I will be in a conversation with Jérôme Pelenc in “Sustainable Human Development and the Capability Approach: Integrating Environment, Responsibility and Collective Agency,” where he argues the importance of being responsible to our environment.
I will argue that the novella portrays responsibility through love and for the caring of the relationships we have with people and nature. I will examine differences in the definition of responsibility, and I will also argue that responsibility is not just exclusive to individuals but also to our community and to our environment.
