It's a Hat, It's a Hat: The Little Prince

    Most of us hate being treated like a child. It makes us feel as though others see us as stupid and not capable of understanding things. The Little Prince, or, Le Petite Prince by Antione De Saint-Exupery, is a popular French story of a child that seems to have more sense than many grown ups. Many adaptions have been made, but the one we're looking at is the 1974 musical version of The Little Prince.

     Once upon a time, a certain pilot grew up with a negative opinion of grown-ups. When he was a boy, he wanted to be an artist. His first drawing was a picture of a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant. All the adults he showed the drawing to didn't realize what that's what is was. They all assumed it was a hat of some sort. All the grownups were the same, uniformly they'd exclaim: It's a hat, it's a hat, it's a hat. With that being the case, he gave up on his desire to draw and decided to fly instead. But while he's testing a plane one day, he crashes and becomes stranded in the Sahara Dessert. While trying to fix it, a little boy dressed as prince appears seemingly out of nowhere. This Little Prince is pretty strange to the pilot. For when he shows the Little Prince his drawing, the Little Prince knows exactly what it is: A boa constrictor that has swallowed an elephant! Will both the Little Prince and the pilot be able to return home where they belong?

       When asked where he's from, the Little Prince tells the pilot that he came to earth from a very small planet. In order to gain knowledge and understanding about life, he decides to life his own planet and visit others. He comes to meet different people, such as a king, a businessman who thinks he owns the stars, and a man who claims to be a historian. The similarity with them is that the Little Prince tries to understand these people only to be told, "You wouldn't understand, you're a child." The point of this is the fact is that we often don't understand people that aren't like ourselves and we sometimes find it difficult to explain ourselves to others, which makes us frustrated and say, "You wouldn't understand." It's especially easy to get frustrated with a child. From what we see in the film and from our own knowledge, children have many questions and aren't usually afraid to ask them due to their young age. From the opinions I've seen from other people, this concept points to the idea that in a sense that we all have our own little planet made from the main theme of our lives. That theme could be anything, from religion to a certain career to your own obsession with ABC's Once Upon A Time. 

     In the film, the Little Prince presumably encounters (judging by the things he says such as, "and while you're wandering through the Heavenly blue, if you should see the Lord come strolling in view, go up and say you bring him best wishes from his fallen old chum, a snake in the grass.")  Satan himself in the form of a snake.  When they first meet, Satan asks the Little Prince why he came to this, "sorry, sleazy, swamp," and says other negative things about our world. The Little Prince thinks he has no way to get back to his planet, so Satan offers to bite him, his form of a snake having venom. Because this film's atmosphere frowns upon grown ups, this segment of the film points out a good thing about adults: They are not as gullible as children. When the Little Prince tells the Pilot about this encounter, the pilot strongly tells the Little Prince not to let himself be poisoned, and that "that snake has poisoned you against the earth. He's been prejudiced against us since the world began." 

      As a whole, The Little Prince is a story made of the pros and cons of the both the child, and the adult world. It reminds us to be careful of evil (Satan) and also to not to let ourselves get too serious, even we are already all grown up. 

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It Has A Name: The Miracle Worker

    What almost every human uses to survive: Sight and sound. What is some people have to live most of  or their entire life without those two things? The Miracle Worker, based on the play by William Gibson, tells the true story of Helen Keller, a remarkable woman who was both deaf and blind, and her teacher, Annie Sullivan.

     Once upon a time, when Helen Keller was a baby, she contracted a terrible illness. Helen lived, but the her sight and hearing were gone. Growing up without these things made her early childhood very difficult. Her parents didn't know how to help her, and without sight and sound, Helen was unable to communicate. Helen's frustration at this was easily triggered and sometimes resulted in violent outbreaks. In a desperate attempt to help Helen, Annie Sullivan is sent from the Perkins Institute for the Blind to live with the Kellers. There, Annie begins to teach Helen the names of things by spelling the words in Helen's hand. But Helen doesn't want Annie around and doesn't understand what Annie's trying to teach her. Will Annie be able to get through to Helen and become the Miracle Worker? 

     The Miracle Worker makes us think about the concept about how we've given everything in our world a name. Helen doesn't know those names, forcing her to just think, this, at almost everything she touches. Annie is constantly trying to teach Helen names, spelling the words into Helen's hand while saying things like, "Water, it has a name,"despite the fact that Helen cannot hear her.  This frustrates them both, possibly more Annie than Helen because most of the time, Helen is quite resentful towards Annie because she's so forceful with her. This tells us that Helen's been spoiled. Annie, however, is determined to make Helen understand the world around her.
 
     The story of Helen Keller and how she is portrayed, (with a marvelous performance from Patty Duke,) in The Miracle Worker shows that one's inability to see and hear cannot limit their understanding. In a particular scene, Helen is holding and touching an egg. Next to her is Annie, telling Helen, "Egg. It has a name. The name stands for the thing." Annie then talks about how that concept is as simple as birth and that a chick has to come out of its shell sometime. Upon realizing this, Annie wants Helen to come out to. The egg then hatches suddenly in Helen's hand, making a look of joy come onto her face. She can't see it, but she can still feel it and thus, understand that something alive had just come. Helen can know through her mother and father about the idea of love, even if she doesn't know it's name, which teaches us that things like love, faith and trust, and all other emotions don't need to named to be felt and understood. 

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