Interpreting Friendship in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

I read Saint-Exupéry's famous work with a child's spirit while also with a philosophical approach to the concept of friendship. I start with exploring the prerequisites for meeting friends: a deep desire to know reality and a fundamental attitude that can be described as an "open existence". Concerning both spiritual conditions it is relevant that solitude is a formative force which leads one, step by step, to the realisation that one is not alone: in the depths of one's soul one is in communion with divine reality. The realisation of this is a dramatic event in every degree. I approach this drama phenomenologically, by distinguishing between the phenomena of original aloneness, abandonment, loneliness and solitude. Each form of being alone can be contrasted with a form of companionship. We can contrast alonness with the still superficial and momentary companionship, what goes along with abandonment is a certain type of friendship, while through going to the depth of loneliness we find more than this, companionship or spiritual friendship. Finally, it is solitude that illuminates togetherness. In making these distinctions, the paradox is grasped: this latter "being alone" of the soul reveals and introduces us into the most intimate "togetherness" with the inner Self. It is through this gradual deepening of this experience that we discover the essential features of friendship. In so far as friendship is a contemplative communion participating in the Good, which entails the acquisition of virtues and thus the transfiguration of the person, the good friend is a committed philosopher.