50321190-39264356-Von-Franz-Puer-Aeternus

hero on the animal level—is swallowed and does not come out again. We
can, therefore, take this introduction, which has no lysis,
symbolically, as a childhood dream, which would mean that the
childhood fantasy of Saint-Exupéry has no lysis. This shows that
there is something basically weak or broken in him from the very
beginning. There is something which cannot escape the fatal aspect of
the unconscious.
Saint-Exupéry, in a slightly ironical manner, speaks mockingly of the
grown-up world and grown-up people who take themselves so seriously
and are really occupied with such trifles. That he himself had such
attributes is shown quite clearly in the biographies. General David,
one of his military superiors, says of him:
He was a man of integrity with a taste for childish pleasures which
were sometimes surprising, and he had unaccountable fits of shyness
when faced with administrative stubbornness; the latter always
remained his bête noir.
Other biographies state that he was a little bit disappointing to
people who met him because he was a bit of a poseur; he gave the
impression of always acting and of not being a completely genuine
personality. This tendency to go off into surprisingly childish
pleasures is not only a symptom of the puer aeternus problem, but
also belongs to the creative personality. Creativeness presupposes a
tremendous capacity for being genuine, for letting go, for being
spontaneous—for if one cannot be spontaneous one cannot really be
creative—and therefore most artists and other creative people have a
normal and genuine tendency to playfulness. That is also the great
relaxation and means of recovery from an exhausting creative effort.
Therefore we cannot ascribe this trait only to Saint-
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Exupéry's puer aeternus nature; it might also belong to the fact that
he was an artist.
The remark made by General David that Saint-Exupéry never overcame
his rage over administrative obstinacy, either of the State or the
Military, and that, on the other hand, he was shy and afraid of those
in administrative positions, is important in connection with the
motif of the sheep, which we have now to discuss. To the man in an
office other people are sheep, and as soon as we are faced with
somebody in an official position we become sheep and he the shepherd.
We are just number So-and-So to him, and naturally officials will
make one feel like that. It is the modern problem of the overwhelming
power of the State, of the devaluation of the individual, which on a
minor scale is the problem of every puer aeternus whenever he has
difficulty adapting, but it is also the problem of our time. The
revolt which most people feel at being reduced to the level of a
sheep in a flock is not confined to the puer aeternus, for there is
something genuine and justifiable in it. Everyone who has not settled
that problem within himself—namely, how far one has to accept the
fact of being just one of a number and how much one is an individual
with the right to individual treatment—has this complex reaction
against what David describes as military stubbornness.
The problem is not only Saint-Exupéry's, but is the great problem of
the whole Christian civilization. In France, however, it takes a
specific turn, for the French tend to display exaggerated
individualism, a kind of protest against all administration, though
lately under de Gaulle's government there has been some change. Since
the First World War there has been a tendency in France to revolt and
be negative in connection with everything having to do with the
pressure of the State, even to the extent that numbers of people
voted for Communism, not because they were really Communists in their
Weltanschauung but simply as a demonstration against the existing
order. Such people would proclaim that since they did not like the
lawyers and clowns in Paris who constituted the Government, they