The characters in 'The Little Prince' offer valuable lessons on behavior and focus. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic tale is a must-read for all ages.
The Pilot is an aviator who crashes in the Sahara desert, where he meets the Little Prince. Through their conversations, he reflects on the nature of childhood, imagination, and life's deeper meanings.
Protagonist
The Little Prince
Innocent, curious, thoughtful
The Little Prince is a young boy from a distant asteroid who travels through space, meeting various adults and learning life lessons. His innocence and curiosity reveal the folly and narrow-mindedness of grown-ups.
The Fox teaches the Little Prince about friendship and love, emphasizing the importance of relationships and the invisible bonds that tie us to others.
Rating
Rating:
3.5/5
Continue down for all the characters to The Little Prince
Degree in M.C.M. Awarded Best Graduating Student in Literature-in-English at UNISEC.
‘The Little Prince‘ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a story with many interesting characters, and it’s quite tasking to choose to talk about some characters and leave the others out. Every character contributes significantly to the powerful lessons from this book.
The Pilot/Narrator
Role: The narrator and companion of the Little Prince.
Key Info: Practical, reflective, sensitive to the deeper truths of life.
A grounded pilot reconnecting with his inner child through his friendship with the Little Prince.
Background: The Pilot crashes into the Sahara desert, where he meets the Little Prince. He spends much of the story reflecting on his life and the vast distance between childhood and adulthood.
Personality: Thoughtful and reflective, the Pilot is a man who has lost some of his childhood innocence but has retained the ability to recognize its value.
Development: Throughout the story, the Pilot’s bond with the Little Prince rekindles his ability to see the world with fresh eyes. He starts to understand that what matters in life isn’t what most adults pursue but rather the simple joys and deeper connections.
Significance: The Pilot represents the adult who has not fully succumbed to the dullness of adulthood. He reminds us that even though life pulls us into responsibilities and routines, there’s always the chance to rediscover the wonder we once knew as children.
The Pilot’s transformation shows us how rediscovering our childlike curiosity can reignite meaning in our lives. While he starts to be worn down by the expectations of adulthood, his encounter with the Little Prince brings out the part of him that still knows how to see things as they are, not just as they appear. His character symbolizes the longing for that lost innocence, which we see more clearly through the Little Prince’s influence. Through the Pilot, Saint-Exupéry suggests that even adults can learn from children if they stop and truly listen.
The Little Prince
Role: The protagonist, the central figure.
Key Info: Naïve, full of wonder, reminds us of how children see the world.
A curious and empathetic boy who symbolizes the innocence and wisdom of childhood.
Background: He’s from a small asteroid, where he cares for his rose and tends to volcanoes. He leaves home to learn about the world and the oddities of grown-up life.
Personality: He’s kind-hearted and curious. Though he doesn’t understand adults, he doesn’t judge them harshly either. He sees life with open eyes, something many lose as they age.
Development: His journey takes him from innocence to a deeper understanding of love and loss. Every person he meets teaches him a different part of what it means to care about others.
Significance: The Little Prince isn’t just a child; he represents how children look at the world with open, fresh eyes and hearts. He shows how much we miss by being too focused on the wrong things.
The Little Prince’s simple ways help him see things adults often overlook, such as love and the joy of truly seeing another person. His journey forces readers to question their views on life. Have we lost sight of what matters most? Through his meetings with adults who’ve let their lives become narrow, Saint-Exupéry suggests we need to hold onto wonder and feeling. It’s a plea to bring back what we lose as we grow up: the wisdom of the heart.
The Rose
Role: The Prince’s love.
Key Info: Beautiful, proud, yet fragile; a symbol of beauty, vanity, and attachment.
A vain and delicate flower who teaches the Little Prince the complexities of love and attachment.
Background: The Rose appears on the Little Prince’s planet, and despite having thorns, she is vulnerable. She demands attention and care, making the Prince feel love and frustration.
Personality: The Rose is delicate but full of pride. She is demanding, seeking reassurance of her beauty and worth. Beneath her vanity, however, she harbors a real, fragile affection for the Prince, but her thorns push him away.
Development: The Rose doesn’t change much throughout the story, but the Prince’s understanding of her deepens. He learns that while she may seem self-centered, her vulnerability is part of what makes her beautiful and unique to him.
Significance: The Rose reminds us that love isn’t always simple or easy. People have flaws and needs, but that doesn’t make them less worthy of love and care.
The Rose represents the complexity of relationships—the balance between beauty and difficulty, affection and frustration. She teaches the Prince and us that love isn’t about perfection. It’s about accepting the flaws of those we care about, even when they frustrate us. The Rose, with its beauty and thorns, symbolizes how we often push away those we need most, but in the end, our care for them makes them unique in our hearts.
The King
Role: A ruler who believes he has absolute power.
Key Info: Commands respect but is trapped in the illusion of control.
A ruler obsessed with authority, symbolizing the adult desire for control without true understanding.
Background: The king lives alone on a planet where he believes he has absolute power. But there’s no one there to listen to him, so he gives orders to everything around him.
Personality: He’s grandiose and sees himself as a fair ruler, but in reality, he’s alone and out of touch with the world. His desire to control everything makes him somewhat delusional.
Development: The King doesn’t change during his encounter with the Prince, but the Prince’s questions and challenges show the limits of the King’s so-called power.
Significance: The King represents the adult obsession with authority and control and the delusion that power means influence over others. He shows the folly of leadership when it becomes disconnected from reality, where orders are given to maintain the illusion of power.
The King symbolizes adults’ need to feel important, often through controlling others or appearing powerful. His belief that his commands are always reasonable points to how people usually justify their actions, even when they are meaningless. The King’s empty reign mirrors how authority becomes hollow when detached from proper understanding or purpose. The Prince sees through the King’s grandeur, recognizing that real influence isn’t about giving orders but understanding and caring for those under your care. Through this character, Saint-Exupéry critiques how society values power for its own sake, warning that authority is an empty pursuit without a genuine connection to others.
The Merchant
Role: A businessman who sells pills that quench thirst.
Key Info: Focuses on efficiency and saving time.
A character focused on efficiency and profit, representing the futility of shortcuts in achieving fulfillment.
Background: The merchant whom the railway switchman meets invents a product that eliminates thirst and allows people to save 53 minutes a week they would have spent drinking water. He explains that his pills are designed to help people be more efficient, freeing up their time to do other things.
Personality: Practical and focused on results, the Merchant sees life as something that should be streamlined. He doesn’t concern himself with the human side of things—his concern is with the logic behind saving time and maximizing efficiency.
Development: The Merchant doesn’t undergo any change.
Significance: The Merchant embodies the adult obsession with productivity and time management. His pill represents the belief that time, once saved, leads to more freedom or happiness.
The Merchant points to the modern obsession with convenience and efficiency, even at the expense of life’s basic pleasures. His thirst-quenching pills symbolize how people are often drawn to shortcuts, thinking that saved time will bring fulfillment. But as the Prince shows, the value of time doesn’t lie in how much you save but in how you spend it. The Merchant’s view is narrow, disconnected from the richness of life’s simple acts. In focusing solely on efficiency, he misses out on the deeper experiences of life, which reveals a broader critique of society’s chase after progress without purpose. Through the Merchant, Saint-Exupéry suggests that life should not be about constantly trying to save time but appreciating what we do with our time.
The Lamplighter
Role: A worker who lights lamps endlessly.
Key Info: Stuck in a loop, turning lamps on and off without rest.
A diligent worker trapped in an endless routine, illustrating the loss of purpose through mindless adherence to duty.
Background: The Lamplighter’s planet turns so fast that he’s always busy lighting or extinguishing lamps. His task has taken over his life.
Personality: He’s diligent and dutiful but doesn’t see the point of his endless work.
Development: Like many adult figures in the story, he doesn’t change. His routine keeps him trapped.
Significance: The Lamplighter represents how people can get caught up in the motions of life and forget to ask why they’re doing what they do.
The Lamplighter’s story is one of duty turned into drudgery. He does his task because it’s what he’s supposed to do, even though it’s meaningless. His life reflects how adults can get stuck in routines that don’t serve them. Through him, the story asks: Are we living or just going through the motions? It’s a powerful look at how easy it is to let habits run our lives instead of finding joy and meaning.
The Geographer
Role: A man of knowledge but little experience.
Key Info: Maps the world without ever seeing it himself.
A scholar who collects knowledge without experiencing the world, representing intellectual detachment.
Background: The Geographer writes about places based on what others tell him. He doesn’t travel; he records facts.
Personality: He values information but doesn’t feel the need to experience anything firsthand.
Development: He stays stuck in his role, content with second-hand knowledge.
Significance: He reminds us that knowledge without experience is shallow and that to know something honestly, you have to live it.
The geographer is an example of how we can sometimes think that knowing facts is the same as understanding the world. His life is spent writing about things he’s never seen, and it shows us the gap between knowledge and wisdom. Through him, Saint-Exupéry suggests that living fully means stepping outside books and charts and truly experiencing life. He asks readers whether they’re just gathering facts or truly living.
The Businessman
Role: A man fixated on wealth.
Key Info: Obsessed with counting stars, which he claims to own.
A materialistic figure obsessed with ownership, highlighting the emptiness of adult ambitions.
Background: On his planet, he counts stars, thinking this makes him rich. His life revolves around adding up numbers, and he never stops to wonder if there’s more to life.
Personality: Cold and practical; he values only what he can own. There’s no joy in his life, only numbers.
Development: Like the lamplighter, the businessman stays the same. He’s too stuck in his ways to see how empty his life is.
Significance: He warns about the dangers of acquisitiveness and the folly of counting wealth as the only measure of worth.
The Businessman’s fixation on stars shows how materialism narrows the mind. He’s so caught up in ownership that he misses the beauty of the stars he’s counting. The message here is clear: life isn’t just about what we can own. By showing us the hollow nature of the Businessman’s life, Saint-Exupéry calls out the empty chase for wealth. It’s a reminder that things won’t bring joy; only relationships and experiences will.
The Fox
Role: A wise creature who teaches the prince about love.
Key Info: Clever and insightful, he shows the prince how bonds are formed.
A wise creature who teaches the Little Prince about love, friendship, and the significance of meaningful bonds.
Background: The Fox lives on Earth and shares deep truths about relationships with the prince. He helps the prince see love is about tending to those we care about.
Personality: Thoughtful and full of understanding, the Fox speaks of patience and the need to build lasting bonds.
Development: While the Fox doesn’t change, his words change the prince, helping him understand the meaning of love.
Significance: The Fox teaches one of the story’s key lessons: true love and friendship take time and effort to build, and once built, they are unlike anything else.
The Fox’s words ring deep: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” He’s telling us that love isn’t passive. It takes time and care, and once you’ve bonded with someone, you owe it to them to stay close. His lesson is simple but profound—real love isn’t something that happens; it’s a slow process, shaped by time, and brings depth and meaning to life. The Fox asks readers to think about their relationships and the care they put into them. Are we patient enough with the people we love?
The Snake
Role: A mysterious figure who touches on life’s end.
Key Info: He speaks of life and death, cryptic.
An enigmatic figure who represents the inevitability of death and the cyclic nature of life.
Background: The Snake meets the prince during his time on Earth. He hints at death, speaking of it not as an end but as part of life’s journey.
Personality: Sly and enigmatic, he speaks of things in a riddle-like fashion.
Development: Though the Snake doesn’t change, his words push the prince to think more deeply about life’s meaning.
Significance: The Snake reminds us that life is fleeting and that death isn’t to be feared but understood.
The Snake speaks to a hard truth for many: life and death are intertwined. His calm talk of death forces the prince—and us—to accept that loss is part of the journey. His presence in the story makes us look at our lives and ask whether we’ve truly understood that nothing lasts forever. It’s a hard lesson, but Saint-Exupéry gently prepares us for this truth through the Snake.
The Railway Switchman
Role: The overseer of the bustling trains.
Key Info: Focused, observant, understands more than he lets on.
The Conductor manages the trains but believes only children appreciate the journey’s beauty.
Background: The railway switchman manages the massive trains that rush back and forth, carrying restless adults who are always in a hurry, though they don’t know why. He spends his days watching people who are always chasing something—yet never satisfied once they get there.
Personality: He’s sharp and practical but isn’t swept up in the same empty rush as his passengers. His role gives him a unique vantage point in life, and he’s not without a certain wisdom about it. He recognizes that children are the only ones who seem to find any joy in the train rides, enjoying the scenery instead of fixating on where they’re going next.
Development: Though the railway switchman doesn’t undergo any significant changes, his quiet agreement with the Little Prince’s outlook on children suggests he’s a man who sees more than just timetables and schedules.
Significance: The railway switchman shows us that not all adults are blind to the wonder in life. He contrasts with the hurried passengers, showing how an adult can still recognize beauty while performing a seemingly dull duty.
The railway switchman isn’t just another worker trapped in routine. He’s a man who sees the discontent around him and quietly sympathizes with the Prince’s view of childhood wonder. The passengers rushing from one place to another represent the adult preoccupation with pointless goals. Meanwhile, like the Prince, the railway switchman sees the children as the only ones who truly understand what matters—taking the time to appreciate the journey. Through this character, Saint-Exupéry seems to hint that even in a world full of distractions, there are adults who still remember the joy and wonder that comes naturally to children. It’s a quiet acknowledgment that not all is lost.
