He spends his time counting the stars he says he owns.

The businessman is a big, busy man who does not even have time to light his cigarette. The little prince is perplexed in the face of this grownup who goes around in circles. The drinker retreats into silence and sadness. The little prince sees that this man is unhappy and wants to help. The drunkard lives alone with his bottle and spends his time drinking to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. Faced with such vanity, the little prince remains perplexed: 'Grown-ups are certainly very odd,' he thought to himself. The little prince reminds this vain person he is alone on his planet, but the vain man still wants to be admired and applauded.

Wearing a hat that is as showy as it is ridiculous, the vain man considers himself as the most beautiful and the most intelligent of his tiny planet. The little prince is not fooled and sees only a strange grownup in this monarch. Not to lose face, this ruler gives 'reasonable' orders (' I order you to sit down'). The king exercises his power on the sun by ordering it to sleep (go down) at bedtime (sunset). His only 'subject' is in fact a rat, which he says he can hear at night. This monarch whom the Prince meets claims that he reigns over everything and that his power is absolute. Though he loves her, the prince is easily annoyed with her he comes to believe she is vulnerable and needs him. The rose/flower represents a stereotypical view of women, for she is fickle, flighty, self-absorbed, flirtatious, and contradictory. At the end of the tale, he asks the snake to bite him in order to send him back to his home planet where his beloved flower is.

He is at times grave, amused, querulous, inquisitive, philosophical, curious, wilful, and kind.

He is the personification of the fantasy world in the story, and the voice of children in the adult world. The little prince is the main protagonist of the story. He crash-lands in the Sahara and befriends the prince while working on his engine. He represents a tamed loneliness and he is the ambassador of reality. The aviator is a little naive and had a great imagination when he was a child, which is why he so quickly and directly connects with the little prince. The aviator is the narrator of the story and at the same time the voice of the author. Buy Study Guide The Narrator (The Aviator)

The prince antoine de saint exupery