It's one of the associations that most arise among attentive readers of The Little Prince: if each planet has a vice, wouldn't the seven deadly sins be there, in disguise? Intuition is rich and deserves to be taken seriously, both in what it illuminates and in what it forces.
Where the parallel works
Some planets almost immediately echo the tradition of the deadly sins. The king, who needs to dominate and be obeyed, is the image of pride, the pride that stands above everything. The vain person, hostage to applause and reflection, literally embodies vanity, the daughter of pride. The businessman, who counts and possesses stars just to be rich, is the perfect portrait of avarice, the attachment to possession. The drunk, trapped in the cycle of escape, can be read as gluttony, in the sense of appetite that turns against itself, or as spiritual laziness, the acedia that does not want to face its own pain.
In these cases, the parallel is not forced: it helps to name with theological precision what the work describes in images.
Where the parallel breaks
But it would be dishonest to fit everything together by force. The geographer, who represents sterile knowledge, does not correspond to any of the seven sins, his vice is intellectual, not moral in the classical sense. And the lamplighter is the opposite of a sin: he is the only character that arouses admiration in the Little Prince, because his gesture, although exhausting, serves others. He embodies a tired virtue rather than a vice.
Furthermore, three of the seven sins, lust, wrath and envy, simply have no planet in the work. Saint-Exupéry's system is not the system of Christian tradition; they only intersect at a few points.
What the association reveals
That the parallel works in part, and not in whole, is the most interesting part. He shows that Saint-Exupéry probably did not write a catalog of sins, but touched, in his own way, on the same subject that tradition had been mapping for centuries: the ways in which the human heart deviates from what is essential.
Great works allow for these multiple readings precisely because they speak of something universal. Reading the planets in light of capital sins does not replace the text, it enriches it, and invites us to ask which of these vices each of us is closest to. To explore this reflection from planet to planet, watch the complete class.
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See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
Are the Little Prince's planets the seven deadly sins?
Not intentionally, but the symbolic parallel works in several cases: the king and pride, the vain man and vanity, the businessman and avarice. It is an interpretative reading, not an author's plan.
Which planet corresponds to which sin?
The clearest associations are king and pride, vain and vanity, drunkard and gluttony or laziness, businessman and avarice. The geographer and the gaslighter don't fit together well, and three sins has no planet.
Was the association made by Saint-Exupéry?
Probably not deliberately. But great works allow for multiple readings, and the tradition of the deadly sins offers a fertile lens for thinking about the vices that each planet embodies.
Go deeper: The 7 planets and what they mean · Alienation in Pequeno Príncipe · The Little Prince: summary and analysis
Source class (YouTube): O Pequeno Príncipe, de Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (NousCast)