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If you ask any American child if they have heard of the story of
Beauty and The Beast, ninety-nine percent of them will have very good
memory of the tale. Beauty and The Beast has been a part of our culture
for many years as are many fairytales. It is read or told to our
children not just for entertainment but for the moral lessons it gives
to us. What most people don't realize is that there is more to this
story than just it's moral values. There are a lot of different ways to
analyze Beauty and the Beast. Some people might feel uncomfortable
talking about them. In this paper nothing will be held back in
critiquing the tale.
Disney made a movie version of Beauty and the Beast. It is the
best-known version of the story. A majority of the population has
either seen the movie or heard about it. The main character, Belle, is
a young girl in a small village. She lived with her father who is an
inventor. Belle sings a song of how boring the village is for her and
how she wants to find happiness in another place. She reads many books
and wishes to have some of the adventures she reads about. Meanwhile
there is a very big man in the village, named Gaston, who wants to
marry Belle but Belle doesn't wan anything to do with him.
One day Belle's father is on his way to sell one of his inventions
and heads off into the woods while Belle takes care of the house.
Before he leaves Belle asks him to bring her back a rose. There was a
bad snowstorm that night and the father got lost in the snow. He sees a
path that has a green glow to it. He is intrigued and goes down the
path. At the end of the path he finds a huge mansion. With nowhere else
to go he has no other choice but to try to get inside. He knocks on the
door but no one answers butt the door slowly swings open. He never
finds any one in the house but dinner fresh clothes and breakfast the
next morning are all set up for him. He leaves without seeing the owner
of the house. On his way out of the mansion he sees a large rose
garden. Remembering what his daughter had asked of him he picked a rose
from the garden. As soon as he lifted the rose from the ground he heard
a tremendous sound and a giant beast came from the mansion. The Beast
told him that he was ungrateful and that he could have had anything he
wanted accept the roses. He told the beast that it was only a gift for
his daughter. The beast told him that he could trade in his life for
his daughters but it must be on her own free will. Regardless of which
of the two came back he had a week to see his daughter. When the father
got home from the mansion he told Belle about the events that morning.
Belle cared too much for her father and agreed to go in his place.
The Beast told her that she had a room upstairs and that everything
in the house was hers except she was not aloud in the west wing. Belle
was greeted by talking objects in that ran the mansion. She was upset
that she did not get to be with her father and Belle left one night to
go find him. On her way home Belle was attacked by wolves and The Beast
came and saved her. After that she was aloud to go back and see her
father but she had to promise to come back.
When the father came back from the Mansion after taking the Belle to
The Beast he went to the towns people for help to save her daughter. No
one wanted to help him because they already thought he was crazy and
when he was ranting and raving about The Beast they thought he was even
crazier. The local hero Gaston, whom every one loved, had a plan to put
the father in a mental institution until Belle promised to marry him.
After Gaston found out The Beast was real he got all the towns people
behind him to attack The Beast and kill him. Belle found The Beast
almost from sorry because Belle had not come back to the mansion in
time.
When the people from the town came to The Beasts house to kill him
the talking objects in the house defended against the mob. The only on
to get through was Gaston. Gaston went to find the Beast and then The
Beast and Gaston fought. The Beast killed Gaston but was mortally
wounded. Belle found the wounded Beast and prayed that he would not die
because she loved him. At that moment the Beast turned into a handsome
prince and they lived happily ever after.
The other version of Beauty and the Beast that I would like to talk
about is the Beaumont version. This version is where most of the other
versions are derived from. In this version Beauty’s father is a
merchant and quite wealthy. Beauty has two spoiled sisters and two
brothers. Her father looses a lot of money over a lawsuit for a ship
that just came in. On his way back home he got lost and found a large
mansion. Dinner and breakfast was left for him, but no people. When he
left the next morning he had remembered that his favorite daughter
wanted a rose from his trip. He picked a rose from the garden and the
Beast came out of the shadows and told him that he must take his life
because the roses mean o much to him. The father tells him of his
daughter that wanted a rose and the Beast said the daughter may come in
his place. He didn’t agree but he was aloud to go home to see his
children again.
Beauty went to the Beasts house in place of her father. The beast
told her that everything in the house was hers. Every night at nine
o’clock the Beast came to eat dinner with Beauty. He asked her the same
question at every dinner; "Will you marry me." Beauty always said she
could not. She starts to like the Beast after a while and she even gets
antsy when nine o’clock comes around.
Beauty begins to miss her father very much and asks the beast if she
can go home. The beast decides to let her go but only if she comes back
in a week. When she gets home the sisters try to get her to stay there
by crying and stuff soothe Beast would get so angry that he would eat
her. Beauty decides to stay lo9nger but after a while begins to feel
the guilt and goes back to the mansion. When she gets there she finds
the Beast near death. Beauty tells the Beast she would marry him and he
turned into a handsome prince and they lived happily ever after.
Both of the Tales I have summarized both have strong moral message.
Most fairy tales have an underlying meaning for people to consider and
make them better human beings. The morals in Disney’s version and
Beaumont are very much the same. They both say that Beauty comes from
within and good nature and kindness is better than wit. The line in the
Beaumont version that sums it all up is; "I am well pleased with your
kind heart; when I think of that you no longer seem so ugly to me." The
message of don’t judge a book by its cover is the obvious moral value.
According to an essay by Jack Zipes, the tale shows woman to be
submissive, obedient and patient. In the Beaumont version Beauty pretty
much does everything for her father and help whenever help is needed.
When beauty is at the beasts place she listens to everything he says.
In the Disney version, however, Belle goes into the forbidden west wing
of the mansion. Zipes points can be very useful when critiquing the
Beaumont version but he stays away from the Disney version because it
doesn’t go along with his thesis.
Many critics will agree that Beauty has Oedipal tendencies in the
movie and the Beaumont story. In both versions Beauty loves her father
and she takes the role of the mother by doing chores and taking care of
the man of the house. She is asked several times for her hand in
marriage but she tells them she doesn’t want to leave her father. Bruno
Bettelheim argues this point. When beauty sees the Beast, he is ugly
because she is not ready for secularity because she is still hung on
her father. Bettelheim says that this might be a manifestation of her
own imagination. To keep incest taboo she sees is afraid of sex with
her father so it is weird for her to see the beast as attractive. It is
not until she gets over the Oedipal love for her father that she can
see the Beast as a handsome prince.
Another underlying aspect of Beauty and The Beast is the class
structure. In the Disney version Beauty lives in a town with the rest
of the villagers that would represent the middle class. The Beast lives
in a huge mansion that would represent the aristocracy. When the town’s
people go to attack the mansion of the Beast it resembles a revolution.
The villagers rising up above the aristocrat. The Upper class defeats
the middle class in the end of the story. Another thing you can look at
is the clothing. The Beast is very well dressed throughout the whole
film and the villagers are dressed pretty bland. When Beauty gets to
the castle she is given nicer more extravagant clothing. The Beast also
has servant in the talking objects that do everything he asks of them.
There are many feminist aspects of both tales. Kathi Maio makes the
point that the story is teaching girls how to tame the beast or your
mate. The story shows the Beast as ugly and mean and Beauty starts to
tell him what to do and he starts to listen and then at the end
eventually transforms him into a prince. Another aspect that only
appears in the Disney version is that Beauty loved to read and back
then women didn’t read or learn much at all, at least not the middle
class. Beauty loves to read and everyone in town thinks she is weird
for it but she does it anyway. She is much more intelligent than many
of the other town folk. The Disney version also gives the father a
goofy kind of role where Beauty has to watch over him and almost be a
mother to him. The Disney version has a lot more feminist aspects than
the Beaumont version.
There are many different kinds of heroes and there are a couple
different kinds in the story of Beauty and the Beast. Beauty can be
considered a romantic hero because of the things she does for the Beast
to make him into a prince but I think she is more of a modern hero,
especially in the Disney version. When the villagers talk about how
ugly and ferocious he is she stand up for him and goes to the castle
and warns him. In the beginning she went to the Beasts house in the
first place with her fathers disproval. Beside what every one else
though she was able to find love for the ugly Beast.
I could go on and on about the different aspects of Beauty and the
Beast. There are so many ways to critique any story. It amazes me the
things people come up with to analyze a story.
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