Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is a traditional folktale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740. The best-known written version was an abridgement of M. Villeneuve's work published in 1756 by Mme Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves; an English translation appeared in 1757.

Similar tales include the Hellenistic romance Cupid and Psyche (1st century BCE), and Madame d'Aulnoy's Le Mouton (The Ram).

Plot summary

Beauty's father, caught in a storm, finds shelter in the Beast's palace. As he leaves, he plucks a rose to bring back to Beauty, offending his unseen host, who tells him he must now die. The father begs to be allowed to see his daughters again: the Beast says that if one of the man's daughters will return to suffer in his place, he may live. Beauty journeys to the Beast's castle convinced she will be killed, but instead she is made mistress of the enchanted palace, and the Beast asks her to be his wife. She says she can be his friend, and will stay with him forever, but not as his wife, asking only to return to her home for a week to say farewell to her father. Her sisters entice her to stay beyond the allotted week, and she returns belatedly to the castle, finding the Beast lying near death from distress at her failure to return. She begs him to live, so that he may be her husband, and by this act the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. After Beauty returns to the palace, her family comes to live with her.

Significance

Beauty and the Beast is often interpreted as a young woman's coming-of-age story. Content with a pure love for her father, she finds sexuality bestial, and so a man who feels sexual desire for her is a beast. Only when she is capable of regarding the desire of sexual relationship as human is she capable of achieving happiness.

Adaptations

The tale has been notably adapted for stage and screen several times. In many of these adaptations, there is a common problem with the dramatic impact of the story; by the end of the story, the audience is so accustomed to and charmed by the Beast, that when he changes back into the prince, it is a disappointment to see him reduced to just another pretty face.

Movie versions

A sumptuous French version of Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) was made in 1946, directed by Jean Cocteau, starring his lover Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as Beauty.

In 1991 Disney produced an animated film of Beauty and the Beast with screenplay by Linda Woolverton, music by Alan Menken, and lyrics by Howard Ashman. It won Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Original Score and is the only animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. This version gave Beauty a name ("Belle", the French word for "beauty.") The Beast's name was never mentioned in the movie, however, according to The Official Disney Encyclopedia by Dave Smith, the Beast's name is Adam. Also, in this version, the servants have been transformed into personified objects and much of the story has been changed. Belle's father is given a name, Maurice, and Belle is his only daughter. A handsome and popular, but boorish, man named Gaston wants to marry Belle so she can be his wife. However, she does not want to marry him due to his boorishness. Gaston and his friends threaten Maurice and the Beast, but eventually Gaston is killed during a final confrontation with the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is now considered one of the Walt Disney Company's classic animated films.

Golden Films released an adaptation of the story directly to video that was distributed by GoodTimes Entertainment. GoodTimes' Beauty and the Beast relied on moderate animation techniques but stuck nicely to the original tale.

The King Kong films are based loosely on the folktale. In the original film, the character of Carl Denham, who sets out in search of the monster with actress Ann Darrow, believes the creature and Ann appearing in a film together will be reminiscent of the folktale. When the creature is brought to New York City and dies after reuniting with Ann (unwilling and willing, respectively) in both the 1933 and 2005 versions, Denham famously remarks that "Beauty" killed "the Beast."

Other famous stories featuring grotesques who fall in love with beautiful women, usually with tragic consequences, include The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Stage Versions

The Disney film was adapted for the stage by Linda Woolverton and Alan Menken, who had worked on the film. Howard Ashman, the original lyricist, had died, and additional lyrics were written by Tim Rice. Six new songs, "No Matter What", "Me", "Home", "How Long Must This Go On?", "Maison des Lunes", and "If I Can't Love Her" were added to those appearing in the original film score in the stage version. "Human Again", a song written for the movie but eventually cut from the final release, was added back in for the DVD release of the movie, as well as the stage production. Later, another song, "A Change In Me", was added for Belle. There is a great deal of emphasis on pyrotechnics, costuming and special effects to produce the imagery of the enchanted castle that was produced by Disney Theatrical. This version of Beauty and the Beast is often examined in gender studies because of the underlying female and male roles it presents to young audiences.

Television

Beauty and the Beast (series), which owed as much to bodice-ripping romance novels and fantasy fiction as to the fairy tale, originally broadcast from 1987 to 1989. This was centered around the relationship between Catherine, an attorney who lived in New York City, played by Linda Hamilton, and Vincent, a gentle but lion-faced "beast", played by Ron Perlman, who dwells in the tunnels beneath the city.

George C. Scott turned in a memorable made-for-TV rendition in 1976, in which, early in the presentation, his Belle Beaumont Trish Van Devere spots him devouring some of the local wildlife in the style of a lion, only later to comport himself in his dialogs with her (still as the Beast) with the nobility and charm of a knight. Scott was nominated for an Emmy for his performance.

Fiction Versions

Beauty and the Beast has been the subject of many novels, most notably in A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley, the Newbery Award-winning author. McKinley's second voyage into the tale of Beauty and the Beast resulted in Rose Daughter.

Tanith Lee's collection Red As Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer included a SF retelling, from the point of view of a female Beast in love with a male human.

Donna Jo Napoli wrote a novel Beast centered around the Beast's point of view.

Beauty and the Beast are characters in the Fables comic book. They are resident in the New York City branch of Fabletown, and are rather poor at the beginning of the series. After the election of Prince Charming as mayor of Fabletown, they are promoted to, respectively, assistant to the mayor and sheriff, vice "Bigby Wolf" (Big Bad Wolf) and Snow White, the previous holders of these offices, who do not wish to work with Prince Charming due to prior difficulties with him.

The story was adapted by Mercedes Lackey into her Elemental Masters novel The Fire Rose, setting the story in early 20th-century San Francisco.

Shigeru Miyamoto cited the story as an inspiration for the Nintendo game Donkey Kong.

In 1967, a made-for television movie called Ugly and the Model was made. It was a parody of the tale and is very loosely based on it.

The Beast and later Beauty make a small appearance in the webcomic No Rest for the Wicked.