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Chapter 25
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
When the pilot returns the next evening, he overhears the little prince conversing with the snake. The little prince asks whether the snake has good poison that will not make him suffer long and sets up a meeting with the snake for later that night. The pilot arrives, asking if what he just heard is all a bad dream. The little prince responds that he will make the pilot a gift of his laughter. Every time the pilot sees the stars, he shall hear the little prince's laughter.
Passing on the fox's lesson, the little prince teaches the pilot that he can remember the little prince through the stars—just as the fox remembers him through the color and texture of the wheat—and that associations like this are actually deep connections to their relationship, and eternal between them.
Themes
The little prince then tells the pilot not to come to the site that night, as it will look a little as if he were dying. The narrator refuses and arrives that night anyway. As they walk, the little prince tries to reassure the pilot, saying that his body is only a shell. The pilot does not respond, and when they reach the spot, the little prince takes a few more steps by himself before sitting down. He says that he is responsible for his flower and must return to take care of her. He gets up again and takes a step before the snake flashes by, and the little prince falls silently.
The little prince reiterates that it is essential that he return to protect his flower, who is helpless without him. The pilot similarly refuses to abandon the little prince in his final moments, hoping to offer protection and comfort to his innocent friend, even as the little prince assures him that his body and outward appearance do not reflect what's truly happening as he returns to his own planet. Once again the prince insists that his relationship to the rose is greater than the surface details, even something death-like.
Themes
