The LittlePrince is a novella,the most famous work of French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviatorAntoine de Saint-Exupery. It is a poetic tale, with watercolourillustrations by the author, in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets ayoung prince visiting Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophicaland includes social criticism of the adult world. It was written during aperiod when Saint-Exupery fled to North America subsequent to the Fall ofFrance during the Second World War, witnessed firsthand by the author andcaptured in his memoir Flight to Arras. Peter Pan is a fictional charactercreated by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited andmischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends hisnever-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland asthe leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids,Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outsideNeverland.

Appreciating The Little Prince and PeterPan that are fairy tales written for adults, the scholars all over theworld explored it from many perspectives. The overseas researches about the twoworks are very few but interesting. One of them representatively regards PeterPan as the Ferenczian child (Bar-Haim, S, 2015), who had not been loved intheir early childhood, and therefore could not develop the capacity to make thejourney from pleasure principle to that of reality. One held that Peter Pan canbe understood as a character who embodies the narcissistic need of someindividuals to retreat from the realities of the adult world (Boulton, N,2006).For The Little Prince, one of theresearches studied the work to analyze child (Ablon,S L,1989).

Luckily, domestic scholars’ studies flourishon it. For example, some researches focus on symbolism and metaphors such asthe rose, the fox (石慧，2017)and the Neverland(王晓兰，2016). Also,some researches study The Little Prince to analyze the existentialism (左睿，2017).Besides, some researches pay attention to translation, especially differentversions of The Little Prince (郭成芳，2016) and the translation of Peter Pan from the reception theory (王婷，2015).In addition, there are somedifferent researches. For example, the exploration of alienation (郭一，2016) and the aesthetic value (乌震婷，2006) in The Little Prince. Many researchers study Peter Pan from theperspective of the myth (崔晓君，2013) whichrefers to Pan in Greek mythological stories and the Peter Pan syndrome (钟晓虹，2008). The innovation part of my paperis that it analyzes the two heroes’ image and make a comparative study of theirsimilarities and differences as well as the factors. Moreover, few people makesuch a comparison between these two heroes. The paper aims to emphasize that althoughthe two heroes are similar, they still have great differences which may becaused by different personal and social factors, especially their view on love.Also, the heroes’ behaviors and words reflect the society of that time, whichhelps us find out the writing motivation. In modern society, as many peoplegrow up, they become “adults” and lose their naivete. Most of them even do notunderstand love. Through the study, we could have introspection.

Based on allthe information or standpoints reflected in these previous studies summarizedabove, and taking the whole evolution of the plot into consideration, it ispossible to compare The Little Prince and Peter Pan from the perspective oftheir pursuit of naivete and love view.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Antoine deSaint-Exupery and The Little Prince

1.2 J.M.Barrie and Peter Pan

1.3 Literature Review

2 Similaritiesand Differences between The Little Prince and Peter Pan