Chapter 4 of the little prince

Chapter number 4 reflection.

Of all the chapters in the book this one appealed most to me. It is laden with truth, so innocently pure, that one cant help but see the meaning of this. A book that might seem funny to a child is actually meaningful to me. From all the chapters this I perceived to be the best.
The narrator of the book talks about the planet the little prince comes from. It is a small asteroid; seen only once by a Turkish astronomer through a telescope. When the man introduced his discovery to the IAC, they rejected his knowledge. But when he did the same presentation in European clothes, his ideas were accepted and he became world-renowned. The narrator points out that grown-ups are like that. This part of the chapter is what really interested me. While a child would read this as something funny that the author randomly put in, I see it as a mockery of human mentality. A subtle still obvious criticism of racism; and the worst part is that we see this everywhere we go. Doctors are taken more seriously is they are not from the Arab origin. The most common place we do see this is at the airport. A man with a Muslim surname will be taken in for questioning. A person with a long beard will be looked at with fear, while a Muslim man in a suit will not, or will probably get one look. If an Arab man in Arab clothes stands next to an Arab man in a reputed suit, all eyes will be on the man in Arab clothes. This is our mentality. It is what we have let ourselves become. Emotion has taken over our ability to reason out, and we perceive all Arab men to be inferior and give them no attention. We speak condescendingly to them, and make them rise in anger. We feel the emotional loss when they act; but do we question why they act? Yes some Arab people act with violence, but so do some Hindus and some Jews and Christians.
The world’s population seems to be turning so narrow minded. It I so common that an Author actually writes about it in a children’s book. This is how inhumane we have become that the few smart people will talk straight to the children who can still be trusted with some hope. The so-called leading youth and the often-called old and wise generations of our times seem to think they are always right. The way they go about things, the generalizations they have made. According to me, forget the same mental level, it doesn’t even seem likely that were all living on the same planet anymore. The ways people think are so twisted that I actually loathe the little prince who has the luck to go back to a planet so far away from this one. A planet that could only be seen by this wretched Earth once.
The narrator goes on to talk about grown-up responses to a child making a new friend. It is usually about his age and his financial backing. Parents ask their kinds things about a child’s parents’ professions. They often even ask which caste the boy belongs to. It is never really about the personality of the boy, it is about his credentials. It is like an interview parents take to approve of their children’s friends.
When in comes to houses, a house is no longer judged by what is in it. It is priced. It is labeled to be top of the line, or as good as a slum. Everything theses days has a label. A label rich, a label Muslim, a label unworthy, a label terrorist! Enough! How long can we be so oblivious to the harm we are inflicting upon none other than ourselves. The narrator says that it mustn’t be held against them, but it should. People must be held accountable for the sins they commit. What man has been doing, this categorizing, it is nothing but a sin. Children see no colour, they see no thickness of wallets and brands of clothes. They see heart, they see the truth.
Most adults wouldn’t even understand the purpose of the narrator’s book. they would see it as just an entertaining story for children; but its more, its way more than that. It is to remind him, everyday of the lesson and the symbol of the little prince. The little prince was freedom. Freedom from the pain and suffering, freedom from the oblivion and mob mentality. The narrator writes his story to remind himself of what he never wants to become like. He writes it to remind him of what the grown-ups did to him when he wanted to paint. He writes to share his story with us, hoping that some will see what he is trying so hard to say.
Man has reached the day where he sees everything in black or white. It is about the money, it is about the safety. There is no middle line; a line of compromise with humanity. We have denatured into rocks and stones, with hard hearts. We call ourselves humans, but it seems that with everyday, we lose every last ounce of humanity left within us. man says evolution is still occurring, but according to me, we seem t be going backward. We need to find the grey. The middle between the black and white. We need to find our humanity and hind a way to go soft again.
The little prince is one woman’s cry to the hardening of mankind. It is her own lesson and a lesson for others. Living on Earth the narrator could not see the sheep through the holes, because with the sickness of the Earth, the spread to even the purist sanest minds is inevitable. This needs to stop before its too late, and this is what the author is trying to do, and this is what I learnt form this one chapter. What have we become; are we really proud to call our selves the most evolved superior living species?