For readers who would like a quick reminder of the book and its main storyline, here is a summary of

The Little Prince’s travels and those he met along the way.

If Saint-Exupéry is to be believed The Little Prince is a book for children written for grown-ups. It can be
read on many different levels to provide pleasure and food for thought for readers of all ages.

The author, an aviator, crashes with his aeroplane in the middle of the Sahara desert. While he is trying
to repair his aeroplane, a little boy appears and asks him to draw a sheep. The author learns that The
Little Prince comes from asteroid B-612 where he has left behind three volcanoes and a rose.

Before reaching Earth, he has visited other planets and met some very odd people: a king, a conceited
man, a drunkard, a lamplighter, a geographer… Since arriving on Earth, he has spoken to a fox who has
taught him that to know someone or something, you must « tame » them, and that makes them unique.
« What is essential is invisible to the eye, says the fox. »

In order to return to his planet and his rose, The Little Prince allows himself to be bitten by a poisonous
snake: his planet is too far away, he cannot take his « shell ». The aviator, who has succeeded in repairing
his plane, also quits the desert. He still hopes The Little Prince will return one day and asks us to write
and tell him if ever we should meet his friend.Pour les lecteurs qui souhaitent se remémorer le livre et
ses principales lignes, voici un résumé du voyage du petit bonhomme et de ses rencontres.

More about the planets visited by the Little Prince

Each planet the Little Prince visits can be seen as an allegory of human nature. If you have already read
the book, we invite you now to take a new look at the different planets.

The king – asteroid B 325

In the book, the Little Prince meets a king who claims to rule over all with absolute power. His only
“subject”, however, is an old rat that he hears at night. The king exercises his power over the sun by
ordering it to set – but only at sunset. In order not to lose face, this oddity of a king gives only
“reasonable” orders (“I order you to sit down”) – as good a way as any to satisfy his thirst for power. The
Little Prince is not fooled, however, and sees the monarch as no more than another odd grown-up.
The conceited man - asteroid B 326

Wearing a hat as showy as it is ridiculous, the conceited man sees himself as the handsomest and the
most intelligent man on his tiny planet. The Little Prince reminds the conceited man that he is, in fact, all
alone on his planet, but still the conceited man wishes to be admired and applauded. The Little Prince is
perplexed by such insistent vanity: “Grown-ups are really very odd,” he says to himself.
The drunkard –asteroid B 327

He lives alone with his collection of bottles and spends his time drinking to forget that he is ashamed of
drinking. To the Little Prince, it is clear that the drunkard is deeply unhappy, and he wants to help. The
drunkard, however, withdraws into sadness and silence. The Little Prince is left perplexed by this adult
who sees no way out of his misery.
The businessman – asteroid B 328

The businessman is a large gentleman who is so very busy that he does not even have time to light his
cigarette. He spends his time counting stars, which he claims to own. Then he writes down the numbers
on a piece of paper that he puts in the bank. The Little Prince tries to make him see that he is wasting his
life and that “owning” means being useful to what you own. He speaks of his rose, which he waters and
protects. The businessman is left speechless, and the Little Prince once again finds grown-ups to be very
disappointing.

The lamplighter – asteroid B 329

The Little Prince is initially rather charmed by this character. His job is a useful one: to light the lamp at
sunset. But the speed of rotation of the lamplighter’s planet is increasing all the time, and the poor
lamplighter is forever putting out his lamp and immediately lighting it again. “Orders are orders,” says
the lamplighter to the Little Prince who, in spite of everything, can only admire the effort this grown-up
puts into being faithful to his orders.
The geographer – Asteroid B 330

The geographer is an old gentleman who writes down, in thick books, the information brought to him by
explorers. His planet is vast and magnificent, but he has no way of knowing whether it has rivers and
mountains because “the geographer is far too important to waste his time browsing around”. The
geographer is someone who needs the stories of others in order to know things; for the Little Prince, on
the other hand, it takes effort to know things. It is the geographer who advises the Little Prince to visit
Earth because, he says, it has “a good reputation”.

__________________

The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. The crash badly damages his airplane and
leaves the narrator with very little food or water. As he is worrying over his predicament, he is
approached by the little prince, a very serious little blond boy who asks the narrator to draw him a
sheep. The narrator obliges, and the two become friends. The pilot learns that the little prince comes
from a small planet that the little prince calls Asteroid 325 but that people on Earth call Asteroid B-612.
The little prince took great care of this planet, preventing any bad seeds from growing and making sure it
was never overrun by baobab trees. One day, a mysterious rose sprouted on the planet and the little
prince fell in love with it. But when he caught the rose in a lie one day, he decided that he could not trust
her anymore. He grew lonely and decided to leave. Despite a last-minute reconciliation with the rose,
the prince set out to explore other planets and cure his loneliness.
While journeying, the narrator tells us, the little prince passes by neighboring asteroids and encounters
for the first time the strange, narrow-minded world of grown-ups. On the first six planets the little prince
visits, he meets a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer, all of
whom live alone and are overly consumed by their chosen occupations. Such strange behavior both
amuses and perturbs the little prince. He does not understand their need to order people around, to be
admired, and to own everything. With the exception of the lamplighter, whose dogged faithfulness he
admires, the little prince does not think much of the adults he visits, and he does not learn anything
useful. However, he learns from the geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss
the rose he has left behind.

At the geographer’s suggestion, the little prince visits Earth, but he lands in the middle of the desert and
cannot find any humans. Instead, he meets a snake who speaks in riddles and hints darkly that its lethal
poison can send the little prince back to the heavens if he so wishes. The little prince ignores the offer
and continues his explorations, stopping to talk to a three-petaled flower and to climb the tallest
mountain he can find, where he confuses the echo of his voice for conversation. Eventually, the little
prince finds a rose garden, which surprises and depresses him—his rose had told him that she was the
only one of her kind.

The prince befriends a fox, who teaches him that the important things in life are visible only to the heart,
that his time away from the rose makes the rose more special to him, and that love makes a person
responsible for the beings that one loves. The little prince realizes that, even though there are many
roses, his love for his rose makes her unique and that he is therefore responsible for her. Despite this
revelation, he still feels very lonely because he is so far away from his rose. The prince ends his story by
describing his encounters with two men, a railway switchman and a salesclerk.

It is now the narrator’s eighth day in the desert, and at the prince’s suggestion, they set off to find a well.
The water feeds their hearts as much as their bodies, and the two share a moment of bliss as they agree
that too many people do not see what is truly important in life. The little prince’s mind, however, is fixed
on returning to his rose, and he begins making plans with the snake to head back to his planet. The
narrator is able to fix his plane on the day before the one-year anniversary of the prince’s arrival on
Earth, and he walks sadly with his friend out to the place the prince landed. The snake bites the prince,
who falls noiselessly to the sand.

The narrator takes comfort when he cannot find the prince’s body the next day and is confident that the
prince has returned to his asteroid. The narrator is also comforted by the stars, in which he now hears
the tinkling of his friend’s laughter. Often, however, he grows sad and wonders if the sheep he drew has
eaten the prince’s rose. The narrator concludes by showing his readers a drawing of the desert landscape
and by asking us to stop for a while under the stars if we are ever in the area and to let the narrator
know immediately if the little prince has returned.
________________________________________________

CONFLICT

Protagonist

The protagonist of the short novel is the Little Prince. He is a simple, yet mystical, creature from asteroid
B-612. One day a seed arrives on his planet and blooms into a beautiful flower. Though the flower is
lovely, it is vain and irritates the Prince. Finally he leaves his planet, to escape the flower. After visiting
several asteroids, the Little Prince reaches Earth, where he meets the narrator in the Sahara Desert.

Antagonist

The problem, or antagonist, of the Little Prince is his thirst for answers. He visits many planets and meets
many people, whom he questions about life. In particular, he wants to understand the existence and
pastimes of adults on Earth. He tries to find his answers from a snake, a fox, and the narrator.

Climax

The climax of the plot occurs when the Little Prince decides to return to his planet and care for his
special flower. He has learned from the fox that the important things in life cannot be seen with the eye,
only felt with the heart. This lesson eventually makes the Little Prince realize that the flower from which
he has fled is really very special. After meeting the narrator and explaining all that he has learned since
he left his planet, the Prince accepts that he really loves the flower because she is his responsibility, and
he has invested time and trouble in her survival. As a result, he decides that he must go back to his star
to take care of his special rose.

Outcome

The story ends in comedy. The Little Prince finds the answers to his questions about what is important in
life. When he realizes his love for the flower, he accepts that he must return to his star to care for the
rose. He makes arrangements with the poisonous snake to bite him, which will insure his safe passage
back home. Before he departs, the Little Prince makes a profound impression on the narrator.
SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis)

The narrator begins the tale with an explanation of his dislike of adults; he claims he does not enjoy
them, for they are much too practical. Instead, he prefers the company of children, who are natural and
curious.

The narrator next tells of how his plane crashed in the desert, where he met the Little Prince, a mystical
creature from another planet. The narrator tells why the Prince left his planet and where he visited
before coming to Earth. His adventures on six different planets are recounted, including the encounters
with the king, the conceited man, the tippler, the businessman, the lamplighter, the geographer, the
snake, the desert flower, the garden of roses, the railway switchman, the merchant, the fox, and the
narrator.

The narrator and the Prince share a rewarding relationship on the desert, and when the Little Prince
departs, the narrator misses his company. He writes the novel in memory of the Little Prince.

THEMES

Major Themes

In The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry explains the importance of seeing the whole truth in order to find
beauty. He believes that visible things are only shells that hint at the real worth hidden inside. He points
out that man has not learned to look beneath the surface, or perhaps, has forgotten how to do so.
Because adults never look inside, they will never know themselves or others.

All his life, Saint-Exupéry thought that grown-ups cared mostly about inconsequential matters, such as
golf and neckties. When they talked about important matters, they always became dull and boring. They
seemed afraid to open up their hearts to the real issues of life; instead, they chose to function on a
surface level.

In the book, the fox teaches that one can see only what is important in life by looking with the heart.
Because of this lesson, Saint-Exupéry leaves the desert as a different person. He has accepted the Little
Prince's thought that “'the stars are beautiful because of a flower that cannot be seen.” In essence, the
fox’s lesson is about how to love, a most important lesson for everybody to learn. The fox points out that
it is the time that one “wastes” on someone or something that makes it important. The fox also tells the
readers that love can overcome existentialism: “One only knows the things that one tames.... Men buy
things already made in the stores. But as there are no stores where friends can be bought, men no
longer have friends.” A human must earn a friendship, not buy it.

Finally, Saint-Exupéry explains how all joy and pleasure must be earned, not given or received. As an
example, he shows the joy that the Little Prince and the pilot feel when they taste the water from the
well. Its sweetness comes from their journey under the stars and the work of the pilot’s arms making the
pulley sing. In the end, the Little Prince again experiences a new joy. Leaving his “shell” behind, he has
gone to the most beautiful place he can imagine -- his star, which is his love; he has returned to his own
little heaven.

Minor Themes

Saint-Exupéry scorns man’s obsession with the wrong things, such as wealth, power, and technology; he
uses the King, the Businessman, and the Lamplighter to highlight this theme. The king puts a great deal
of importance into being obeyed, even though he orders only what would happen anyway. The
businessman takes great pride in owning all the stars, but he is too busy counting them to gain any
pleasure from their beauty. The Little Prince tries to teach him the pointlessness of his “property.” The
Little Prince also scorns the Lamplighter’s fascination with science and technology. He is so caught up in
the importance of lighting his lamp, that he misses what is important in life.

The need to have faith is another minor theme in the book. The Little Prince arrives on the Earth during a
spiritually troubled phase and stays until he has resolved his confusions. During his stay, he teaches the
narrator the importance of having faith and belief. Many critics have called the Little Prince a Christ-
figure, for he is described as being free of sin. He also believes in a life after death. At the end of the
book, he returns to his star, his heaven.

MOOD

The mood is mostly adventurous and mysterious, with a philosophical overtone. At first the Little Prince
does not reveal his identity, creating an initial sense of mystery. Then as the Little Prince recounts his
travels, the mood becomes adventurous. As he questions the fox and the narrator, the mood becomes
philosophic. At the end, when the Prince arranges to be bitten by the snake, the mood again becomes
mysterious. Although he seems to die from the snake bite, the narrator cannot find the Prince’s body
when he looks for it the next morning. He can only assume that the Prince successfully returns to his
star.

_____________________________
SETTINGS

The book is not set in a particular period or in one specific place. In the first chapter the narrator writes
about his childhood experiences with drawings and about his low opinion of adults. In the second
chapter the narrator starts narrating a particular series of incidents. He writes of the time when his plane
crashed in the desert of Sahara six years ago. Most of the narrative after the second chapter is set in the
desert. The other places that function as settings include the asteroid where the Little Prince has his
home and the planets that the Little Prince visits, including asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330.
The last planet that he visits is the Earth, where he meets the narrator in the Sahara Desert. The story is
really about the narrator’s friendship with the Little Prince and about the Prince’s own quest, which
takes him to seven planets apart from his own.

CHARACTER LIST

Major Characters

The narrator

The narrator is really the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The reader hears his voice throughout the
book as he relates the story of the Little Prince and of his own friendship with him. The narrator says
plainly that he is a romantic who does not like adults, whom he finds too practical; instead, he prefers
children, whom he finds natural and delightful. The narrator writes this story of his encounter with the
Little Prince in order to deal with the sorrow of losing his precious friend.

The Little Prince

The novel is named after the Little Prince, who is a mystical and loveable person. He is the sole
inhabitant of a small planet, which the narrator refers to as B-612. The Prince leaves his planet to visit
other places and finally lands on Earth. In the Sahara Desert, he meets the narrator and befriends him.
The narrator tells of his encounter with the Prince and also relates the adventures of the Prince on the
other asteroids that the latter has visited.

The fox

The Little Prince meets the fox in the desert. The fox is a wise creature, which teaches the Prince about
the essence of life. After they become friends, the fox asks the Little Prince to ‘tame him, which is what
the latter does.
Minor Characters

The Turkish Astronomer

The narrator mentions the Turkish astronomer in the fourth chapter. The narrator believes that the
planet from which the Little Prince has come is the asteroid known as B-612. A Turkish astronomer first
sees this asteroid through the telescope in 1909.

The Little Prince’s flower

On the Little Prince’s planet, the flowers are usually very simple; but one day, from a seed blown from
afar, a new flower comes up that is very beautiful, but also very vain. The Prince begins to doubt the
flower’s credibility and finally leaves his planet to escape the company of the flower.

The King

The king is the sole inhabitant of asteroid 325, which the Little Prince visits after leaving his own planet.
The king insists upon his authority being respected and does not tolerate disobedience; however, since
he is a very good man, he makes his orders reasonable. Just before the Prince leaves the king’s planet,
the latter makes the former an ambassador.

The Conceited Man

He is the inhabitant of asteroid 326. Totally conceited, he insists that everyone else admire him. He does
not listen to anything but praise and expects the Little Prince to praise and admire him.

The Tippler

The tippler lives on asteroid 327. When the Prince asks him what he is doing, the tippler replies that he is
drinking to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.

The Businessman

The businessman sits and counts stars on asteroid 328. He thinks that he owns the stars, making him
rich. The Little Prince explains to the businessman that he is of no use at all to the stars that he owns.

The Lamplighter

The lamplighter lives on asteroid 329 and does the job of lighting and then putting out the lamplight. The
lamplighter thinks that his is a terrible profession, because once every minute he has to light the lamp,
for his planet makes a complete turn every sixty seconds. The Prince feels that the lamplighter is the only
one who could have been his friend.

The Geographer

The geographer lives on a planet that is ten times larger than the lamplighter’s planet. He explains that
he is a scholar who knows the location of all the seas, rivers, towns, mountains, and deserts. He is the
one who advises the Prince to visit the planet Earth, as it has a good reputation.

The Snake

The first living thing that the Prince encounters on the planet Earth is a snake. The snake tells him that it
gets a little lonely among men. The Prince thinks that the snake is very weak, but the snake tells him that
he can kill a person. The snake also says that he can solve all kinds of riddles.

The Desert Flower

The Prince meets a flower in the desert. It tells him that there are only six or seven men in existence and
that one never knows where to find them. According to the flower, the wind blows the men away.

Garden of Roses

The Prince meets a garden of roses on the planet Earth. He is overcome with sadness on seeing them
because there are five thousand of them in a single garden. His flower has told him that it was the only
one of its kind in the universe. He cries when he realizes that his flower has lied to him.

Railway Switchman

The Prince meets the railway switchman on Earth. The switchman tells the Prince that he sorts out
travelers and sends off the trains that carry them. The switchman also says that no one is ever satisfied
with his position. During his conversation with the switchman, the Prince tells him that only the children
know what they are looking for.

Merchant

The Prince asks the merchant why he sells pills that quench thirst. The merchant answers that he sells
them because they save a lot of time. The Prince feels that he would rather use that time to walk at
leisure toward a spring of fresh water. ___________________________

settings :

The Galaxy

This is the background for the little prince's journey. He moves from one small plant to another, meeting
a variety of characters. Each of the characters he meets inhabits a small planet of his own. The
characteristics of each inhabitant are what distinguish one small planet from the other. They are
described, individually, in the Character section.

The Planet Earth

The little prince learns of planet Earth from the geographer. When the prince asks him what planet he
should visit next, the geographer advises him to visit Earth. "It has a good reputation," he tells the little
prince.

The Sahara Desert

It is in this desolate stretch of Africa, largely unpopulated and mysterious, that the pilot meets the little
prince. It is also here that the prince landed one year prior to meeting the pilot. And it is here that the
prince reconnects with the snake...
What's Up With the Title?

BACK NEXT

At first this title seems pretty obvious: The Little Prince is about the main character, the little prince, who
goes on adventures and meets the narrator. What else could this book be called, really? None of the
other characters are important enough to deserve the whole title. Even the narrator doesn’t have a
name. The book exists so that the narrator can remember the prince. From that perspective, it simply
has to be named after the prince. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a very good memorial.

If you want to be fancy, you could refer to the title in its original French: Le Petit Prince. That’s not so
hard to match, word for word, against the English version. “Le,” the article, is basically the same as saying
“The.” “Prince” is the same word

in both languages. “Petit” can mean “little,” like in the English title, or “small” or “young.”