Is the Little Prince Jesus? The short answer is, maybe. One of the great things about The Little Princeis that it can be understood in so many different ways. One way it can be understood is as a religious allegory, or symbolic story. In this case, there are obvious connections between the Little Prince and Christ. Like Christ, the Prince comes to Earth in a bodily form from the sky, demanding that the narrator...
Is the Little Prince Jesus? The short answer is, maybe. One of the great things about The Little Prince is that it can be understood in so many different ways. One way it can be understood is as a religious allegory, or symbolic story. In this case, there are obvious connections between the Little Prince and Christ. Like Christ, the Prince comes to Earth in a bodily form from the sky, demanding that the narrator draw him a sheep (or lamb, the symbol of Jesus). The fox, in expressing his desire to be "tamed" by the Prince, can be seen as a sinner seeking absolution. Like Jesus, the Prince is ressurected to his planet -- he dies, but his body cannot be found, and presumably somewhere in the heavens he returns to his Rose.
However, other details are not so clear. The snake, for example, is a reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, a manifestation of Satan, who tempts Eve and causes man's expulsion from Paradise. In The Little Prince, however, the snake, far from evil, helps the Little Prince return to paradise (his planet -- if we can think of his planet as a paradise). As is often the case with allegory, assigning specific meanings to story elements usually leads to many inconsistencies. I think that rather than ask if the Prince is Jesus, a better question might be to ask how our understanding of the story -- and Christianity -- might change if we think of the Prince as Christ.
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