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Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Little Prince, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Relationships
The True and the Essential
Exploration vs. Narrowmindedness
Childhood vs. Adulthood
Innocence
Summary
Analysis
The little prince continues his travels and meets a railway switchman. He asks the switchman what the train passengers are pursuing, and the switchman replies that they are pursuing nothing at all. He says that the adults are either asleep or yawning, and that only the children look outside the windows during the journey. The little prince says that only the children know what they are looking for, and the switchman responds that they are lucky.
The children understand that the journey and process of exploring are more important than the destination. Their innocence, their innate curiosity, allows them to understand this essential fact better than the grownups who allow the landscape to pass them by. What are the children looking for? Experience—a connection to the world.
Themes
