Fairy Tales 2010

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Purpose of Parents in Beauty & The Beast

In each of the stories the father figure is doting and kind but also somewhat meek, he serves as yet another foil for the Beast’s brutality and vulgar appearance. The father figure, though poor in many cases, represents the bourgeois that is supposed to retain the manners the Beast usually presents with. As per our discussion in class today, in Madame de Beaumont’s version, when confronted by the Beast after picking a rose for Belle, the father tries to apologize and calls the Beast “my liege” and tries to flatter the Beast as was and still is occasionally customary when faced with a more powerful foe. The Beast however is the one who calls realistic expectations to the situation and becomes angry and tells the father not to give him “an honorific” because he recognizes that he is an animal though the father feels it is more prudent in the scenario to act as though he can relate to the beast on a human, proper level. He assumes that Beast would want to be treated as human. This interplay between the father and Beast and the permanent fixture of fathers in the Beauty and the Beast stories of course draws up the question of the Oedipus complex.

As described in the Oedipus complex in which a child wishes to find a mate similar to their parent and dismiss the parent of their same sex. Girls look for traits reflective of their fathers when seeking a spouse. Accordingly, in many of these stories a mother is absent or evil as many older women are in fairytales, but the father is supposed to represent what Belle wants. As she says in Cocteau’s film to Avenant, she cannot leave her father in order to marry. The Beast seems to be the complete opposite of her father but when Belle talks to those around her about the Beast she always says he is “kind and gentle” just like her father in the stories and the Beast gets deathly ill just as her father usually does in the stories so that Belle has to return to them both after journeys away. Perhaps the father figure is there to give the audience context for the type of male figure Belle is supposed to want to be with.

1 comment:

  1. You know, I'm usually not a fan of reading the Oedipal Complex into every vaguely romantic or parent-child-strife story, but here's one instance where it makes perfect sense. The Disney version really set me off the course here, because the focus in the development of that Beast is on the taming of his temper and the revelation of his nobility--two traits that don't seem at all related to the father. You're exactly right, though: the Beaumont/Cocteau version's Beast is surprisingly meek and pitiful--"good" in the sense that he is kind, not brave as in the Disney movie. One need look no further than the pivotal "Beast moment" in each tradition to see the difference: the one I grew up with fights off a pack of wolves, but the one Cocteau depicts just mopes around in bed out of loneliness.
    The absence of a mother figure makes some sense in an Oedipal reading, but I wonder if the clearly evil sisters are not supposed to stand in for the mother a bit, given that they also vie for the father's affection (or, really, monetary attention). In that case, Belle's gracious attitude toward them is a bit of a puzzle, although I suppose that, in a very Proverbs 25:21-22 way, her kindness is ruthlessly effective in outcompeting her sisters for her father's heart.

    ReplyDelete