Gender and Nature in Beauty and the Beast

This week, our class' readings focused on the different variations of the "the tale as old and time" - Beauty and the Beast. One particularly interesting version of the story that we read was "The Tiger's Bride," a short story by Angela Carter which is based heavily on the traditional Beauty and the Beast narrative, but with a few key differences. Not only is the story written in lush, descriptive prose (making it a fairy tale as appose to a folk tale according to our earlier definition), but it also succeeds in subverting at least two of the central themes of the more well-known version of the story written by Jeanne-Marie de Beaumont.

Image result for music boxThe first of these themes is gender. In de Beaumont's older telling of the story, this theme is a bit more subliminal, but in Carter's retelling, it takes center stage. One way that this is done is by focusing more on the lack of agency that Beauty seems to have in whether or not she is handed over to the Beast. Instead of glossing over the way that Beauty is essentially treated by the Beast as an object or piece of property in a transaction between the himself and her father (as de Beaumont seems to) Carter leans into this aspect of the story by having Beauty's father loose her to the Beast in a game of cards. The fact that her father is willing to bet his daughter's life in this way implies pretty heavily that he considers her to be a piece property, not a person. This subversion of de Beaumont's version of the story becomes even more clear when it is noted that Beauty and the Beast may have originally been a story meant to help prepare young girls for the anxiety of arranged marriages.

This notion of the objectification of Beauty (and women in general) is further developed in "The Tiger's Bride" by the image of the mechanical maid that the Beast assigns to wait on Beauty. The maid looks almost exactly like Beauty, but also appears distantly artificial. This seems to symbolize the unrealistic expectations that are heaped on Carter's Beauty in her everyday life, as well as on her predecessor in de Beaumont's version of the story through the opposition between the ugly, unintelligent Beast who must be loved for his character and the women who are either perfect in every way (Beauty) or completely awful (her sisters). At the end of the story, Beauty decides to send the mechanical maid back in her place to her father's house, with the implication being that he will like the perfect machine-possession he expects and desires better than the imperfect person he had bet to the beast.

Image result for tigerAs for Beauty herself, she decides to stay with the Beast and, in a much clearer subversion of the original story, allows him to turn her into a Beast (a tiger in this case), instead of her turning him human. This ending not only subverts the theme of celebrating "the civilizing power of feminine virtue and its triumph over crude animal instincts" (Tatar 37) which is often found in earlier, European versions of the story, but also seems to questions whether "civilization" is actually something to be praised. It is, after all, the culture of civilization in which Beauty is oppressed and treated like a piece of property, even by her father, who is supposed to love her. Seemingly realizing all of this by the end of the story, Carter's Beauty is freed by the Beast from the cultural restrictions of civilization and returns to a state of Nature in which she can exercise true agency.


Works Cited:
Tatar, Maria. “Introduction: Beauty and the Beast.” The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism, W.W. Norton Et Company, 2017, pp. 31–39.

Picture Credits:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Anastasia-Alexandra-Nicholas-Hinged-Trinket-Box/46339216
https://www.balisafarimarinepark.com/animals/tigers/



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are Fairy and Folk Tales?

Image
If we are going to be spending the next several weeks discussing folk and fairy tales, I think that it will be useful to try and first define what exactly we mean by these two terms. Based on what we've read so far and the discussions we've had in class, it seems that there are at least two main features of folk and fairy tales which we might examine in order to help us to get at what they are and how they relate to each other and to other pieces of literature.  The most important feature of both a folk tale and a fairy tale is the presence of magic or other fantastical elements in the story. A folk or fairy tale might, for example, involve characters such as witches or fairy godmothers who can perform magic and make impossible things happen, or it might include strange creatures such as ogres or talking animals. Typically, the story will also involve a regular person (often a young person) interacting with the magical elements of the world. Bettelheim argues that these ma...
Read more

Introduction

Image
My name is John McEachern and I am writing this blog as a part of Dr. Esa's class on folk and fairy tales at McDaniel college. Although I am taking this class mainly to fulfill an honors elective requirement, I chose this class specifically because I have always had an interest in myths, legends, and folk tales. When I was younger, I had a particular fascination with stories of mythical creatures and I have a lot of great memories looking for them in the woods during by older brother's baseball games. I don't really believe in these kinds things anymore, but I still love to read stories about ghosts, magic, and monsters and think that their is an inherent value in the sense of thrill, mystery, and wonder at the world that such stories impart. In this class, I am looking forward (first of all) to reading fairy and folk tales every week and feeling these emotions as I do so. I am also looking forward to learning how to view fairy tales from a literary perspective and lea...
Read more

The Poetry of Arabic Folktales

Image
This week, McDaniel Arabic Professor Carol Zaru came in to tale to our class about Arabic folktales. Much like in the other cultures that we have looked so far, the Arabic tales were told both for entertainment and to pass on certain moral lessons. Arabic tales for entertainment include the stories of the Thousand and One Nights and the stories of Joha, a simpleton or trickster character who has spread and been adapted by cultures throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Stories about him are often short and humorous, reminding me a little of some of the Jewish stories we have read, such as "A Dispute in Sign Language" or "Chelm Justice." Another kind of Arabic story features two jackals named Kalila and Dimna. These tales originated in the court of an Indian king, but spread across the Middle East as tales which provide the hearer with wisdom and moral knowledge. One feature of Arabic tales I found to be particularly interesting is the rol...
Read more