Désert mythique ou mythologie du désert dans l’oeuvre d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Abstract

Saint-Exupéry's work is deeply engrossed in the thematic of desert which constitutes major concerns for the author about both of mankind and its future. It's capitalized, according to us, on the author's experience as man and as a pilot. It holds of a multiple dimansion : mystical, philosophical and humanistic. Saint Exupéry has devoted its life and work to qu'est for a truth that, according to him, can't be discerned only by himself. Its work is presented as an amount of experience reliant on a relationship, not only a one with oneself but, a one with the others and a one with the other because, hereafter, both of the trades (pilot and writer) merge into one whole. The writer generates serious thinking about the existence : prompting mankind to know about oneself and bringing up questions about one's place (or even about one's mission) in this life. By countless aphorisms, Saint Exupéry's words lead the protagonists to some kind of initiation that makes them come out to a change and a spiritual awakening. By conquering three areas at the same time, the sky, the sea and the sand, - three deserts at last- Saint Exupéry made an inner achievement, making of himself a timeless man, a visionary, all in an unutterable solitude, a complicated solitude, sometimes a wished one and sometimes a loathed one, marked by meditation, dreams, marvellous visions, determining thoughts going to some kind of an enigmatic mysticism. He is making of the desert his intimate space, an integral part of both his life and work. All his work is a life-changing thought about the human race, the evolution of its intrinsic values and its humanity, which are being lost. His idea incorporates a major philosophy of life since it has a universal connotation. The desert takes other plurality symbols for mankind, far beyond a topographical space, thus becomes a quest of the oneself through a proof mass that ought to make him discover its own truth