Beauty and the Beast

Hello again, readers! I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend!

This post I’d like to talk about one of my favorite fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast. Most of you are probably familiar with the story, but modern adaptations of it vary greatly from the original tale. For instance, Disney’s addition of Gaston to the movie (which is my second favorite Disney movie, if anyone is interested), or the fact that most films have Belle as an only child instead of having sisters. The core elements remain the same, but minor details are changed with every retelling. As such, I’d like to talk about the original story. Beauty and the Beast was written in the 1700’s by a French woman named Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The tale is as follows:

Once upon a time there was a wealthy merchant who had three daughters. The youngest of them, Belle, was the most beautiful and pure of heart. One day when the sisters were all fully-grown the merchant lost his ships at sea - and with them, his wealth. Used to living the high life, the sisters are suddenly forced to move to a farm and do manual labor. Belle bears this with remarkably good grace, but her sisters hate the work and complain all the time.

Eventually Belle’s father hears that one of his ships has appeared in port. He decides to travel back to the city to see if any of its cargo is intact. The father asks his daughters what they want him to bring back from the city. The two eldest ask for jewels and rich clothing; Belle requests a rose, since their farm has none.

When the father arrives at the port he is dismayed to find that all of the ship’s goods have been seized to repay his debts. Left with no money and nowhere to stay, he sets out to return home. Along the way he becomes lost in a great forest; seeking shelter from a storm, the father stumbles upon an enormous castle. The doors all somehow open as he approaches them, and he heads inside to find the master of the house. Instead the father finds a dining room with a rich meal laid out. When no one arrives, he eats the meal and spends the night on the couch.

The next morning the merchant has another meal and sets out to leave the castle. As he approaches the gate he notices a large, beautiful rose garden. Remembering Belle’s request, he cuts one of the roses to take home to her - only to be confronted by a hideous Beast!

The Beast is furious that the merchant has betrayed his hospitality by stealing one of his roses. He threatens to kill the man, but the girl’s father explains that he only picked the rose to fulfill a promise to his daughter. His explanation calms the Beast, who agrees to let the father return to his daughters and give Belle the rose...but only if the father will come back to the Beast’s castle.

When Belle’s father agrees, the Beast sends him back to the girls with saddlebags full of jewels and rich clothing. The Beast also forces the merchant to promise not to tell Belle of his agreement to come back. Of course, Belle eventually pries the story out of him when he returns home. Determined not to let her father go back to the Beast, Belle goes in his stead.

The Beast welcomes Belle to his castle, and proves to be quite civilized. He holds long conversations with her each day, gives her fine clothing, and declares her the mistress of his castle. Every night they share a meal together, and it is here that I must attach a picture.

This was one of the first illustrations of the Beast. Isn’t he adorable?!

*Ahem*, anyway! Each night after dinner the Beast asks Belle to marry him, and each night she declines. After her refusal Belle goes to bed, where she dreams of a handsome prince who asks her why she won’t marry the Beast. Belle responds that she only loves the Beast as a friend. Convinced that the Beast is holding the prince prisoner, Belle searches for him during the day, but never finds him.

Eventually Belle becomes homesick and begs the Beast to let her see her family. He agrees, but asks that she stay no longer than one week. When Belle agrees he sends her off with a magic mirror, which lets her see the Beast’s castle, and a magic ring that will instantly return her to the castle if she twists it on her finger three times.

Belle quickly arrives at her home and is overjoyed to see her father and sisters. Her sisters are shocked to see the finery Belle is dressed in, and quickly become jealous of her life at the castle. When they hear that Belle has promised to only stay with them for a week, they cajole her into staying for one extra day. The sisters hope that this will cause the Beast to become angry with Belle and kill her.

When the eighth day of her visit arrives Belle feels terribly guilty. She looks in the magic mirror to check in on the Beast - only to find him lying half-dead from heartbreak. Belle immediately uses the magic ring to return to him. She professes her love for him and begins to weep over the Beast. At her declaration he turns into the handsome prince from her dreams!
The prince explains that he was cursed by a fairy after he refused to let her take shelter from the rain. The curse would only be broken if he could find true love despite his ugly exterior. He and Belle marry, and they live happily ever after.

There you have the original story of Beauty and the Beast! I hope you enjoyed it. I’m actually a little disappointed that so many of its adaptations don’t include the sisters - in many ways, they’re more hateable than Gaston!

Beauty and the Beast has quite a few similarities to mythology. I’ve talked before about the Greek story of Hades and Persephone, and the Mesopotamian one of Ereshkigal and Nergal. In both cases, “Beauty” (who is a guy in the Mesopotamian myth) is sent to the Beast because of “her” father. The Beast turns out to not be as terrible as previously thought, and the myths end with Beauty and the Beast ruling together from their palace (at least for half of the year, in the case of Persephone). I love the similarities between the mythology and the fairy tale, but also the differences!

As far as modern adaptations of the story go, oh goodness...I have so many that I love! Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors, and whenever I’m having a hard time I read one of her books. She has actually written two Beauty and the Beast stories, each of them quite different from one another. My favorite of the two is Rose Daughter, but Beauty is very nearly as good!

On the movie side of things, of course there’s Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”. While I still haven’t read the book Beastly, I do enjoy the movie adaptation - it’s a modern take on Beauty and the Beast, and while it takes some liberties with the story, it’s worth it for Neil Patrick Harris alone! There’s also a fascinating film called “Blood of Beasts” which my dad and I found on Netflix and absolutely adored. It is a tragedy, but it’s really interesting to see a Viking take on Beauty and the Beast!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I hope I’ll see you again next week! My next post will be about The White Cat, which is probably my favorite fairy tale. As always, please comment below or email me with anything you want to talk about; I’m still taking requests for fairy tales you want me to do a post about!

One last thing: There was a TV show called “Beauty and the Beast” that starred Ron Perlman as a leonine Beast. While the show got too strange and depressing for me to finish, I did dearly love his take on the Beast; mostly I just love his appearance! So here, because it seems appropriate for this post, is a picture of him.

See you next post!