The Little Prince

Chapter 20

But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men.
"Good morning," he said.

He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.
"Good morning," said the roses.
The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.
"Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.
"We are roses," the roses said.
And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!
"She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that... she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life-- for if I did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die..."
Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees-- and one of them perhaps extinct forever... that doesn't make me a very great prince..."
And he lay down in the grass and cried

Human Nature is really what is explored throughout the book. The book is based on a number of emotions however in this chapter focuses on love. The theme of human narrow mind ness is highlighted by the prince himself as he immediately jumps to various conclusions and starts to criticize the common things he has.
The Little Prince characterizes narrow-mindedness as a trait of adults. In the very first chapter, the narrator draws a sharp contrast between the respective ways grown-ups and children view the world. He depicts grown-ups as unimaginative, superficial, and stubbornly sure that their limited perspective is the only one possible. Yet ironically enough as the Little Prince explores and becomes more experienced and learned (his growth is symbolic of the transformation of a boy to a man) he himself starts behaving like these adults especially in this chapter. The Little Prince after seeing the earth starts putting himself down as worthless and not as great a prince as he thought he was. His emotion of sadness overpowers his reason and he starts to cry. Ironically enough this would not have bothered him if he hadn’t come to earth and seen that volcanoes and roses exist elsewhere. The little Prince disregards the love that the rose and he share and does not see that the emotion of love is what makes his rose unique.
Reason begins to fail him and we see the joyful prince becoming a wreck as he matures to the world again symbolizing a child growing into an adult. His reasoning is fallacious because he does not look at the counter arguments, he follows the James Lange Theory of emotions where he lets his worry of the reaction of his rose when he tells her that she is a common flower culminate to the end of his self- confidence. He needs to be shown the truth through the eyes of another.
However the prince's love for his rose is the driving force behind the novel and leads to the realization of the responsibility of relationships which in this materialistic and science driven world that ends emotions is hard to come by.