Namelessness in “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Why are title character and narrator nameless, and how did the author find the little prince?

“The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is the most famous work of French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The novella is one of the most-translated books in the world and has been voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into 300 languages and dialects, selling nearly two million copies annually, and with year-to-date sales of over 140 million copies worldwide, it has become one of the best-selling books ever published.” —Wikipedia

The title character is nameless. The narrator never asks his name. The boy never volunteers it. He is referred to as “the little prince,” but that is only a description of his size, age, and sex, expressed in a term of endearment.

The narrator, too, is nameless. Since he was the pilot of a plane when most pilots were men, it is implied that the narrator is a man, but the boy never asks his name and the man never volunteers it.

Since it is only in dreams and multiple personality that people and personalities are often nameless, and since the narrator does not say he is telling the story of a dream (although at one point he wonders if he could be), it is probable that the story is a product of the author’s multiple personality.

This means that the little prince was not experienced by the author as being intentionally created by him, but as coming to him spontaneously. The author might have thought of this as coming from his “unconscious,” but that is a misnomer, since it would have been “unconscious” only from the point of view of the author’s regular personality, who might have been unaware of having other personalities, per se.

In multiple personality, which begins in childhood, the most common kind of alternate personality is the child-aged alternate personality.

In the entry on The Little Prince in Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince — the only reference cited as to how the title character came to the author, https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/03/exupery-little-prince-morgan-drawings/, quotes photojournalist John Phillips as follows:

“When I asked Saint-Ex how the Little Prince had entered his life, he told me that one day he looked down on what he thought was a blank sheet and saw a small childlike figure. ‘I asked him who he was,’ Saint-Ex said. ‘I’m the Little Prince,’ was the reply.”

As I have discussed in past posts, people with multiple personality sometimes see one of their alternate personalities when they look in a mirror (search “mirror” and “mirrors”). A blank sheet of paper might be just as good.

Alternate personalities, once they have become aware of each other, can converse with each other. Most often this takes the form of the regular personality’s hearing the voice of an alternate personality speaking from behind-the-scenes. But more than one personality can be out at the same time (visualized and quoted by a spokesman or speaking for themselves alternately). It is not just a joke that a therapy session can be like group therapy.

The alternate personality introduced himself to the author as “the little prince,” a designation the author and narrator respected and adopted, because the character was experienced as a person who was found, not as something manufactured, which could be named as one pleased.

Why is the narrator nameless? It is not safe to assume that the narrator is the author (the regular, social, host personality). The narrator may be another alternate personality, which is what is implied when authors speak of finding the narrative “voice” for a novel.