On Antoine de Saint's imagination

Essay; Tapas Sarkar;

Imagination cannot be excluded from reality. In other words we can say that reality is the concrete reflection of imagination. When our bodily existence is concrete, then the mental or psycho existence is imaginary (conscious, subconscious, superconscious). As we are, fundamentally, made of body and mind. Therefore, our exclusive true existence is the blend of both these conditions complementarity. With imagination, Antoine de Saint's novella "The Little Prince" reflects this philosophical motto providing fruitful meanings of experience. 

    The story begins with an aviator who is lonely and frustrated in a desert after his plane crush, where he finds a little prince whose experience of life is a little strange to an earthly man like the aviator, but the little prince's  experience is important to formulate a revolution in the aviator's struggle. Here the little prince can be the aviator himself and the aviator can be interpreted as the representation of the entire human race. The aviator's crushed plane can be interpreted as the body and his narration or the experience with the little prince's company can be interpreted as an imaginary journey which provides ample meanings of reason for existence, of existence. Such as, the little prince's relationship with the rose- his conversation with the fox- provide grandeur meaning in subtle things. And, finally his leaving from the Earth after the snakebite shows the true value of relationship. Here, snakebite is not the symbol of death, rather returning to the core existence where he belongs. Here, the writer's imagination does not only represent the internal construction and deconstruction of human existence, rather the characters hint us perceive how the internal (imaginary power) understanding of self and of other selves helps us create the external existence. 

    The novel also gives us a vision of non-complex co-existence in nature and with the Nature, through the little prince's conversation with the other creatures on earth. For, his sacrifice is positively constructive where he says that he is returning to his core existence, even after the snakebite; it is of course not death. At the same time, the aviator is relieved from his struggle. He is now free to fly; humanity is resurrected. Therefore, imagination is an important catalyst for our existence. It should not be killed.