The Little Prince characters

Also known as the pilot, the aviator

Appears from the start

An adult pilot who tells the story. As a child he loved to draw but gave it up when grown-ups mistook his drawing of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant for a hat, and he came to find the adult world dull and preoccupied with practical matters. He becomes a pilot, and when his plane breaks down in the desert far from any help he must repair it alone with a dwindling supply of water. In this predicament he meets a small, curious visitor whose questions and drawings reopen the imaginative way of seeing he had abandoned.

First appears in chapter 2

A small, golden-haired child who appears beside the stranded pilot in the desert and gently asks him to draw a sheep. Serious, earnest, and full of questions he never lets go of once asked, he comes from a tiny planet far away and is traveling to learn about the world. He speaks of distant places and strange encounters with a calm directness, and he is puzzled by the odd priorities of grown-ups. Beneath his innocence lies a quiet sadness and a deep attachment to something he has left behind on his own small planet.

First appears in chapter 8

A single beautiful flower that one day sprang up on the little prince's tiny planet, the only one of her kind there. Proud and vain, she fusses over her appearance, asks to be sheltered from drafts and protected under a glass globe, and makes demands that trouble and confuse the prince who cares for her. Her coquettish pride and small deceptions strain their bond, and it is partly because of the difficulty between them that the prince decides to leave his planet, though his love for her stays with him.

First appears in chapter 10

The sole inhabitant of the first small planet the little prince visits, an old man in an ermine robe who believes he rules over everything and everyone, including the stars. Eager for a subject to command, he issues orders but is careful to command only what would happen anyway, calling this reasonable authority. He offers the prince posts such as minister of justice, but the prince finds his rule empty and moves on.

First appears in chapter 13

A man alone on a small planet who spends all his time counting the stars, which he claims to own because he was the first to think of owning them. Too busy adding up his figures to look up at what he counts, he plans to write the number down and lock it away in a bank. The little prince finds his idea of owning the stars pointless, since it does the stars no good, unlike the way the prince tends and belongs to his flower.

First appears in chapter 14

The keeper of a single street lamp on a tiny planet that now spins so fast that a day lasts only a minute, so he must light and put out his lamp again and again without rest, faithfully following an order given long ago. Exhausted and longing for sleep, he keeps to his duty all the same. The little prince feels this is the only grown-up he has met whose work is for something other than himself, and he would gladly have stayed to keep him company.

First appears in chapter 17

A yellow desert snake that the little prince meets soon after arriving on Earth, the first creature he speaks to there. Small but claiming great power, it speaks in riddles and hints that it can send anyone it touches back to the place they came from. It is mysterious and solitary, and it tells the prince that it can help him return to his own planet whenever he wishes, an offer whose meaning becomes clear only later.

First appears in chapter 21

A wild fox the little prince meets in a garden on Earth. When the prince asks it to play, the fox explains that it cannot until it has been tamed, and it teaches him that taming means building ties, so that two who were nothing to each other become unique and needed. Through the fox the prince learns that the time and care he gave his flower are what make her matter, that one becomes responsible forever for what one has tamed, and that what is truly important cannot be seen with the eyes.