Essay

Misun Lim

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (03)

05 October 2015

Literature: Young Boys Turn Into Mature

       How could the boys grow up? I learn some valuable lessons through two characters in the two literatures, those are 'The Little prince' by Saint Exupery and 'When I turned nine'(in korean, it is 'Ahopsal Insaeng' by Wie gi cheol. I'd like to share with you something what I learned. I want to give you one mission before I write this essay. Guess that it the 'mature' that i've mentioned is a physical mature or mental mature. I will compare to each characters and tell you why I think they are similar or difference. Now, let me introduce two characters.

       First literature that i'm going to tell you is The Little Prince. The character that i'm going to introduce is Little prince. The story is that: Little prince who lived in a little planet, leave his home and trip other planets. Through traveling to other planets, The little prince are emotionally and mentally mature. Before traveling, he think only of himself. I can say that It looks kind of selfish. For example, little prince love his rose in his little planet. But they don't know how to love. So he misunderstood the rose and has left his home. While traveling many other planets, he comes to the planet called 'Earth'. In the Earth, he met one character called 'fox' and learn how to love. He realized then for the first time how to love and how to treat loved ones. Finally little prince knows why he loves his rose at home. Little prince learned that the rose he take care and protect under a glass cover is only one. And about the rose, he take responsibility forever. I'm going to borrow a little quote out of the book. The fox said that 'You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed'. The 'little' prince was reached maturity by almost end of his trip. I think he became real prince. not 'little' prince anymore.               

      Second literature that i'm going to tell you is When I turned nine. It is korean literature and it calls, in korean, 'Ahopsal Insaeng'. main character boy named yeomin Baek have many difficult experience in his poor village. Like the bitterness of unrequited love and discriminating against poor family compared with rich kids and so on. End of the novel, through this experiences, he became more mentally mature. Even though yeomin is nine years old young boy, he learned that  if you avoid the matters, sadness and bitterness of life remain unresolved. To solve the matters, we must confront that matters. I'm going to borrow a little quote out of the book. End of the story, yeomin said 'Finally, I became ten years old'. This line is the most impressive part to me. someone might think nine is too young to know about life. Nevertheless, the young boy know a life of his own and I can feel more closer that thing through the line,

       The two characters, The little prince and yeomin, have three similarities. First, both characters are young boy. So show us their growth process. Second, the boys went through many episode, meeting many characters who inspire them. Third, through episode, the boys turn from young and naive boy into matured characters in the end of the story.

       However, there are two differences between them. First, in 'The little prince',  little prince went off on a journey himself to find meaning about relationship between himself and rose. In the other hand, in 'When I turned nine', yeomin doesn't went to trip. It shows what really happens in his daily life. Second, in 'The little prince', little prince got a kind of adviser or counselor. For example, fox and hunter work the role. Little prince was helped from them. So get to know what he want to know. On the contrary, in 'When I turned nine', there was no adviser or counselor. Yeomin see and undergo everything for himself.

      Reading the books, I realize that to grow up, I must go through many life experience no matter how hard it is. If you want to mature, you do not afraid face a difficulty. Those two books really inspire me to know about life attitude. I think It is also be a main point.