a beast in sheep's clothing

One of the most fascinating components of Angela Carter’s already interesting “Tiger’s Bride” was the story’s revisionist take on the father figure of the traditional Beauty and Beast story. Sure, some of the other “in-laws” have their time in the spotlight in this tale type (I particularly like the long-suffering and emotionally complex mother in The Pig King), but Beauty’s father has always been the important one. His character in early versions shows a confusing blend of sympathetic and condemning traits—he seems loving and lovable, but Beauty’s capture is ultimately his fault. Different adaptations try to obscure that fact a bit by focusing on Beauty’s virtuous insistence on replacing him (she escapes in Cocteau’s and is apparently quite persuasive in Beaumont’s), but the fact remains that a loving father probably shouldn’t have told his daughters about the “substitution” option in the first place (“ah yes, I will die—although, just so you know, one of you could save me *wink*”). The only acceptable way I see of dealing with this character flaw is to do what Disney did: have Beauty find out about her father’s state herself, and have the Beast make the offer to her.

Anyway, getting back to my first statement, I was pleasantly surprised to find the father’s negligence aggrandized and thoroughly villainized in “The Tiger’s Bride”—quite honestly, Carter’s overwritten style made me worry for her relationship with her own father! From the opening line, all trace of “lovable” has been taken out of Beaumont’s/Disney’s lovably pathetic dad, to an extent that fundamentally transforms the story. The girl’s interactions with the beast, generally the focus of and driving force behind these stories, are cast in a weirdly reactionary light. I say “weirdly” because all the elements are there for this to be a straightforward and powerful allegory of sexual awakening (or identity-finding, or what have you), but instead the reader can’t shake the sense that the girl’s actions are born out of resentment rather than any internal vitality of character. Thus, in a roundabout way, the very act of “correcting for” the original father’s overlooked flaws turns him into a far more important character than he ever was in the early stories, and one has to wonder if that’s really what Carter was shooting for.