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For the film of the same name, see "Beauty and the Beast (film)." For the Season Seven episode, see "Beauty." For the Beauty from the story, see Belle. For the Beast from the story, see Rumplestiltskin. |
"Beauty and the Beast," also known as "La Belle et la Bête," is a fairy tale featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by French author Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740. It was revised and popularized by French author Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756.
Traditional Plot
A widowed merchant lives in a mansion in a city with his twelve children (six sons and six daughters). All his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, Beauty, is the most gorgeous among all of them. Beauty is the loveliest, as well as kind, well-read, and pure of heart; while her elder sisters, in contrast, are cruel, selfish, vain, spoiled and jealous of Beauty.
The merchant and his children become poor when their house burns down and his ships get lost in a storm at sea and robbed by pirates. He and his children are forced to live in a small cottage in the countryside and work for a living. While Beauty makes a firm resolution to adjust to rural life with a cheerful disposition, her sisters do not and mistake her determination for stupidity.
Two years later, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of her companions. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. His oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, and the finest dresses possible as they think that his wealth has returned. Beauty asks for nothing but her father to be safe, but when he insists on buying her a present, she is satisfied with the promise of a rose, as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him penniless and unable to buy his children's presents.
During his return, the merchant becomes lost during a vicious storm. Seeking shelter, he comes upon a castle surrounded by lifelike statues. Seeing that no one is home, the merchant sneaks in and finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him by the castle's invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there. The next morning, the merchant has come to view the palace as his own possession and is about to leave to fetch his children when he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. The merchant quickly plucks the loveliest rose he can find, and is about to pluck more to create a bouquet only to end up being confronted by a hideous "Beast" who tries to kill him for stealing of his most precious possession even after accepting his hospitality. The merchant begs to be set free, revealing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, but only if the merchant brings one of his daughters to take his place without deception; he makes it clear that she must agree to take his place while under no illusions about her predicament.
The merchant is upset, but accepts this condition for the sake of his own life, as he has no choice. The Beast sends him on his way with wealth, jewels, and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, and stresses that he must not lie to his daughters. The merchant, upon arriving home, hands Beauty the rose she requested and informs her that it had a terrible price, before relaying what had happened during his absence. Her brothers say that they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, while his older daughters refuse to leave and place blame on Beauty, urging her to right her own wrong. The merchant dissuades them, forbidding his children from ever going near the Beast. Beauty willingly decides to go to the Beast's castle, moving her father who remembers a Romani fortune-teller's prophecy about his youngest daughter making his household lucky. The following morning, Beauty and her father set out atop two magical horses that the Beast has provided them.
Once they arrive, the Beast receives her with great ceremony and her arrival is greeted with fireworks entwining their initials. After that, the merchant is sent home with a reward the following morning. The Beast gives Beauty lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her and she notes that he is inclined to stupidity rather than savagery.
Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to sleep with him, only to be refused each time (note that Beast's question, while somewhat risqué, is not used in a sexual fashion: When Beauty finally agrees to sleep with the Beast, he merely sleeps beside her all through the night, and no other activities beyond Beauty's mysterious dreams are described). After each refusal, Beauty dreams of a handsome Prince with whom she begins to fall in love. Despite the apparition of a fairy urging her not to be deceived by appearances, she does not make the connection between the Prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding him captive somewhere in the castle. She searches and discovers many enchanted rooms containing sources of entertainment ranging from libraries to aviaries to enchanted windows allowing her to attend the theatre. She also comes across songbirds, parrots, and monkeys, which act as servants, but never the unknown Prince from her dreams.
For several months, Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's castle, having every whim catered to, with no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go see her family again. He allows it on the condition that she returns exactly two months later. Beauty agrees to this and is presented with an enchanted ring, which allows her to wake up in her family's new home in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well-fed and dressed in finery, and their old jealousy quickly flares when their suitors' gazes turn to Beauty, even though she bestows lavish gifts on them and informs the men that she is only there to witness her sisters' weddings. Her father hints that if Beauty is going to her sisters' wedding, he makes it clear that she must marry the Beast as well. However, Beauty rejects her father, and her brothers do all they can to prevent her from going back to his castle, and she reluctantly agrees to stay longer.
When the two months have passed, she envisions the Beast dying alone on the castle grounds and hastens to return despite her brothers' resolve to prevent her from doing so. Once she is back in the castle, Beauty's fears are confirmed, and she finds the Beast near death in a cave on the grounds. Seeing this, Beauty is distraught, realizing that she loves him. Despite this, she remains calm and fetches water from a nearby spring, which she uses to resuscitate him. That night, she agrees to sleep next to him. When she wakes up, she finds that the Beast has transformed into the Prince from her dreams. This is followed by the arrival of the fairy who had previously advised her in her dreams, along with a woman she does not recognize, in a golden carriage pulled by white stags. The woman turns out to be the Prince's mother the Queen whose joy quickly falters when she finds out that Beauty is not of noble birth. The fairy chastises the Queen and eventually reveals that Beauty is actually a princess and their niece, her true father being the Queen's brother the King of the Fortunate Island, and her mother being the fairy's sister.
When the matter of Beauty's background is resolved, she requests that the Prince tell his tale, and so he does. The Prince informs her that his father, the King, died before the Prince was born and his mother had to fight an enemy to defend the kingdom. The Queen left the Prince in the care of his wicked fairy Godmother, who tried to seduce him when he became an adult and helped his mother win the war. When the war ended, the wicked fairy accompanied the Queen and the Prince back to the castle, asking him to marry her. But the Prince refused to marry the wicked fairy who, in a rage, transformed him into an ugly Beast in front of his shocked mother. Before leaving mother and son, the wicked fairy warned them that only a maiden's act of true love could break the spell and that if anyone else beside the Queen knew about it, the Prince would be a Beast forever. After the Prince's godmother left, the good fairy then arrived to help him by turning the castle's servants to stone to prevent them from revealing the curse to outsiders, and promising to protect his mother from the wicked fairy. The good fairy also summoned her Genie servants to keep the Prince company while he waited for Beauty's arrival. The Prince also revealed to Beauty that it was her aunt who arranged for her to see the Prince's true self in dreams and that the birds and monkeys are the Genie servants.
The good fairy then summons the King of the Fortunate Island to the castle, reuniting him with his daughter whom he believed to had died in infancy. After bringing the petrified servants back to life, the fairy tells the Royal Family her story. The King of the Fortunate Island married a fairy who disguised herself and her Genie servants as a shepherdess and a flock of sheep. Shortly after her daughter was born, the Queen of the Fortunate Island sent her husband on a hunting trip before she and her sister went to fairyland for one of their kind's triannual meetings with the fairy Queen. At the meeting, the good fairy's sister was imprisoned for being a non-Elder fairy with a mortal husband and child; the laws of fairyland forbid non-Elder fairies (fairies aged below 1,000 years) from having families with humans. Acting as chief prosecutor at the trial was none other than the Prince's evil godmother, who herself is an Elder fairy. As further punishment, another Elder fairy cursed the Princess of the Fortunate Island to marry a Beast.
Back on the Fortunate Island, the people faked their imprisoned Queen's death after they were unable to find her. Prior to cursing her godson, the wicked fairy first attempted to seduce the King by becoming his daughter's governess. The wicked fairy then hired a greedy couple to kill the Princess as part of her plot to marry the King. To rescue her niece, the good fairy (then 990 years old) became an Elder by mastering the Terrible Act, a transformation spell, to turn into a bear and kill the would-be murderers, whose blood she dipped the Princess's clothes in to fake the child's death. The good fairy then spirited her niece away to a countryside cottage inhabited by three sleeping women and a sick girl the same age as the Princess. When the sick child died, the good fairy secretly swapped the two little girls, burying the dead one in an unmarked grave. Returning to the cottage to find the women waking up, the good fairy transformed into a beggar and asked them for food and who they were. The three women replied that they were nurses whose master, the merchant, had sent to the countryside with his youngest child, hoping that the fresh air would cure her. Surprised to find a healthy girl in the cradle and unaware she was not their master's child, the three nurses soon returned to the city with the Princess. Following the nurses to the merchant's mansion, the good fairy then disguised herself as the Romani fortune-teller who told the merchant of the prophecy of "his" youngest child bringing luck to his household, and decreed that she be named "Beauty."
When the King of the Fortunate Island believed both his wife and daughter to be dead, he banished the wicked fairy who then attempted to seduce the Prince before turning him into a Beast. The good fairy then arranged for Beauty and the Prince to meet, the young couple's love both breaking the wicked fairy's spell and fulfilling the Princess's destiny to marry a Beast. The good fairy had also testified against the Prince's godmother, who has since been imprisoned for her crimes against the Royal Family.
After the good fairy finishes her story, her sister arrives at the castle, having been freed and made an Elder fairy as part of a bargain with the fairy Queen. With the entire Royal Family reunited, Beauty's aunt summons the merchant, his children, and the suitors to the castle. Beauty's surrogate family members are told the whole truth and, with the Royal Family's blessing, are made members of the Princess's court and the suitors marry her jealous sisters.
Beauty and the Prince are married and they live happily ever after, and the Prince's mother commands that their tale be written in books so that everyone could know the story of Beauty and the Beast.The story begins in much the same way, although now the merchant has only six children: three sons and three daughters of which Beauty is one. When the family is forced to relocate to the country, Beauty starts doing domestic chores for her family while her sisters do nothing. The circumstances leading to her arrival at the Beast's castle unfold in a similar manner, but on this arrival, Beauty is informed that she is a mistress and he will obey her. Beaumont strips most of the lavish descriptions present in Beauty's exploration of the palace and quickly jumps to her return home. She is given leave to remain there for a week, and when she arrives, her sisters feign fondness to entice her to remain another week in hopes that the Beast will devour her in anger. Again, she returns to him dying and restores his life. The two then marry and live happily ever after.
Show Adaptation
- Unlike the original "Beauty and the Beast" tale, the "beast" is not given a grotesque appearance due to being bewitched by a fairy, but rather seeks out to control a being known as the Dark One to compensate for his own cowardly ways. This goes badly when the Dark One manipulates the man, Rumplestiltskin, into killing him with a special blade that causes the being's powers to transfer onto him instead. From this, the powers of the Dark One corrupts both Rumplestiltskin's physical looks as well as the depths of his soul with an increasing desire to obtain more power and kill those who threaten to take it away. ("Desperate Souls")
- In the original tale, the merchant stumbles upon a castle and is caught trying to steal a rose for his daughter, Beauty, which causes the beast to ask in return that either the man returns or he sends his daughter. Beauty goes in her father's place, but in the show adaption, Belle sacrifices herself to Rumplestiltskin in order to save the townspeople from ogres. ("Skin Deep")
- While Beauty's father is a merchant and forced by the beast to choose to return or send his daughter, Belle's father is a lord of a castle (similar to the way Beauty's real father is a king who lives in a castle in the Villeneuve version of the story) and begs for assistance in protecting his land and people from attacking ogres with Rumplestiltskin suggesting Belle become his servant as part of a deal, which she agrees to. ("Skin Deep")
- In the Villeneuve version of the fairy tale, Beauty and her sisters must do labor typical of a rural life after the family loses their fortune and are forced to relocate to the country. In the Beaumont version, Beauty starts doing domestic chores for her family while her sisters do nothing. On Once Upon a Time, she performs domestic chores for Rumplestiltskin when she becomes his maid. ("Skin Deep" et al.)
- Belle comments on her fiance Gaston and says that it was an arranged marriage and that she does not care for him. According to some people, Villeneuve's version of "Beauty and the Beast" can be read as a tale intended to prepare young brides of eighteenth century France for an arranged marriage. At the time, women in France had few legal rights and arranged marriages were common, with young girls being married off around the ages of fourteen or fifteen, often to men who were decades older than them. The Beast can be read as representing a young girl's fear of their future married prospect: Would the man abuse her, would he be a monster? Or could she learn to love her husband and accept her fate. Alternatively, the story can be read as critique of arranged marriages and women's lack of freedom in the arranged marriage system.[1] ("Skin Deep")
- In addition, in order to secure the kingdom's future during the Ogre War, Belle accepts her betrothal to Gaston even though she learns that he has evil in his soul; another parallel to the proposed meaning of the fairy tale. ("Her Handsome Hero")
- Rumplestiltskin's curse can only be broken by true love's kiss. However, Rumplestiltskin refuses to let go of his powers and his budding relationship with Belle is cut short when he kicks her out of his castle. ("Skin Deep")
- In the Villeneuve version, Beauty experiences mysterious dreams about a handsome prince who later turns out to be Beast. On one occasion, the moment where she starts dreaming is referred to as her being "in the arms of Morpheus," the god of dreams from Greek mythology. In the Beaumont version, Belle returns to her family for two months and dreams that the Beast is dying. On Once Upon a Time, Mr. Gold (the Storybrooke counterpart of Rumplestiltskin) enters Belle's Dream World while Belle is under a Sleeping Curse, guided by a mysterious person posing as Morpheus. The person turns out to be Belle and Gold's unborn child Gideon. ("The Savior")
- In the original version of "Beauty and the Beast" by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, Beast's father died when he was little and his mother was later forced to go off to war. Scared of losing her young son, she left him in the care of a fairy who turned out to be evil. Initially, the fairy took good care of the prince but when he grew older, she transformed him into the beast in retaliation for rejecting her advances. On Once Upon a Time, Beast's mother and the wicked fairy are combined into one: Fiona learns about a prophecy about her child's destiny to become the Savior and die fighting a great evil. Scared of losing Rumplestiltskin, she desperately seeks to protect him, even turning herself into a fairy in order to do so. Although she initially seeks to take care of her infant son, she eventually turns evil and ends up cutting her son off from his fate of a savior, which eventually led him down the path to becoming a "beast." When Fiona is banished to the Dark Realm, Beast's father is lead to believe that she is dead and the child grows up with a single parent. Fiona becomes known as the Black Fairy and begins to steal other people's babies, and forces the children to work to mine dark fairy dust for her. ("Changelings," "Mother's Little Helper," "The Black Fairy")
- Gideon, the son of the Once Upon a Time version of Beauty and the Beast, addresses the Black Fairy as mother. In Villeneuve's fairy tale, the Beast called the wicked fairy "mother" until she started to develop sexual feelings for him and forbade it.[2] ("Mother's Little Helper" et al.)
- In the Villeneuve version of the story, the good fairy tells Beauty the story of how the wicked fairy attempted to murder Beauty (who turns out to be the daughter of a king and therefore a princess) when she was a baby, planning to commit the murder in a neighboring forest. The good fairy considered taking Beauty away, but knew that the wicked fairy would just retake the child from her, without it being in her power to stop her. The fairy discovered that a merchant's baby daughter had died, so in order to protect Beauty, the good fairy took the dead girl away and left Beauty in her place. Similarly, on Once Upon a Time, Belle (here the daughter of a lord who is the ruler of an unnamed kingdom) tasks Mother Superior (aka the Blue Fairy) with taking her newborn son away to protect him from Rumplestiltskin, the Black Fairy's son. However, the plan fails, and afterward, a distraught Mother Superior reports to Belle and Mr. Gold that the Black Fairy abducted the baby in the forest, despite Mother Superior fighting as hard as she could to stop her. The Black Fairy then raises the child as her own. ("Changelings," "Mother's Little Helper")
- Similarly, the Blue Fairy tells Belle about how she failed to protect Jack and Jill's infant son from being kidnapped by Rumplestiltskin. The latter then proceeds to use the baby to lure the Black Fairy. ("Changelings")
- In Villeneuve's version, the wicked fairy, planning to seduce Beauty's real father, assigns a protecting fairy and two subaltern, invisible fairies to watch over Beast in her absence.[3] On Once Upon a Time, the protector and the wicked fairy are combined into one, with Fiona desperately seeking to protect the infant Rumplestiltskin, even turning herself into a fairy in order to do so. Tiger Lily and the Blue Fairy's role in the story alludes to the other two fairies from Villeneuve's version, with Tiger Lily being young Rumplestiltskin's fairy godmother, and the Blue Fairy accompanying her when they, on the night Fiona gives birth to Rumplestiltskin, visit Fiona to tell her about the prophecy about her child being destined to be a Savior and fight a great evil. ("The Black Fairy")
- The good fairy and the wicked fairy have also been merged into one figure, with Fiona embodying a desperate mother determined to safeguard her child, transforming herself into a fairy to enhance her ability to fulfill this role. However, she ends up turning evil in the process. ("The Black Fairy")
- In the Villeneuve version, the fairies have a book referred to as "the general book"[4] and "the great book,"[3] in which all that they do is magically written down at the very same instant that the action takes place.[4] This book is used by the wicked fairy to find proof that Beauty's real mother was not living according to the laws of the fairies.[3] On Once Upon a Time, the fairies have a book known as the Book of Prophecy, which Fiona uses to find out her infant son's fate. ("The Black Fairy")
Characters Featured
| Original Character | Adapted as | First Featured in |
|---|---|---|
| The Beast | Rumplestiltskin | "Skin Deep" |
| Yaoguai / Prince Phillip (allusion) | "The Outsider" | |
| Beast's father (Villeneuve version only) |
Malcolm | "The Black Fairy" |
| Beast's mother (Villeneuve version only) |
Black Fairy | "Changelings" |
| Beast's other protectors ("two subaltern and invisible fairies") (Villeneuve version only) |
Blue Fairy (allusion) Tiger Lily |
"The Black Fairy" |
| Beast's protective fairy (Villeneuve version only) |
Black Fairy | "The Black Fairy" |
| Beauty | Belle | "Skin Deep" |
| Beauty's father (Villeneuve version only) |
Sir Maurice | "Skin Deep" |
| Beauty's father's horse (Villeneuve version only) |
Maurice's horse | "Her Handsome Hero" |
| Beauty's mother (Villeneuve version only) |
Colette | "Family Business" |
| Beauty's suitor | Gaston | "Skin Deep" |
| Fairies (predominantly Villeneuve's version) |
Fairies | "The Black Fairy" |
| The good fairy (Villeneuve version only) |
Blue Fairy (allusion) | "Changelings" |
| Black Fairy | "The Black Fairy" | |
| The merchant | Sir Maurice | "Skin Deep" |
| The wicked fairy (predominantly Villeneuve's version) |
Black Fairy | "Changelings" |
| Maleficent (allusion) | "The Outsider" | |
| Zoso (allusion) | "Desperate Souls" | |
| The merchant's horse | Maurice's horse | "Her Handsome Hero" |
| Morpheus (mentioned in Villeneuve's version) |
Gideon | "The Savior" (used as alias) |
Locations Featured
| Original Location | Adapted as | First Featured in |
|---|---|---|
| The Beast's castle | The Dark Castle | "Skin Deep" |
| Beauty's dreams (predominantly Villeneuve's version) |
Belle's Dream World | "The Crocodile" |
| Beauty's hometown | Belle's village (mentioned) | "Skin Deep" |
| Beauty's father's castle (Villeneuve version only) |
Maurice's castle | "Skin Deep" |
| Merchant's country house | Maurice's castle | "Skin Deep" |
| Merchant's city house (Villeneuve version only) |
Maurice's castle | "Skin Deep" |
Items Featured
| Original Item | Adapted as | First Featured in |
|---|---|---|
| Fairies' general book / Fairies' great book (Villeneuve version only) |
Book of Prophecy | "The Black Fairy" |
| The rose | Gaston's rose (allusion) | "Skin Deep" |
| Magical rose | "The Dark Swan" | |
| The mirror | Mirror of Souls (allusion) | "Her Handsome Hero" |
Elements Featured
| Original Element | Adapted as | First Featured in |
|---|---|---|
| Wicked fairy's spell | Darkness (allusion) | "Pilot" |
References
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