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This article focuses on the story, "Beauty and the Beast".
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 fairytale 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 widower merchant lives in a mansion with his twelve children (six sons and six daughters). All of his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, Beauty, is the most lovely. She is also kind, well-read, and pure of heart; her elder sisters, though, are cruel, selfish, vain, and spoiled. On a dark and stormy night at sea, the merchant is robbed by pirates who sink most of his merchant fleet and force the entire family to live in a country house and work for a living. The sons divide the former servants' duties among themselves, while Beauty and her sisters must do labor typical of a rural life. While Beauty makes a firm resolution to adjust to rural life with a cheerful disposition, her sisters do not.

A year later, the merchant hears from one of his crew members that one of the trade ships he had sent has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its companions. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. The sons ask for weaponry and horses to hunt with, whereas the oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, and fine dresses, as they think his wealth has returned. Beauty asks nothing but her father's safety, but when he insists on buying her a present, she is satisfied with the promise of a rose after none had grown last spring. However, to his dismay, the merchant finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him penniless and unable to buy his children's presents.

On his way back, the merchant is caught in a terrible storm. Seeking shelter, he comes upon a mysterious palace. The merchant sneaks in, seeing that nobody is home, and finds tables laden with food and drinks which seem to have been left for him by the palace's invisible owner. The merchant accepts these gifts and spends the night. The next morning, the merchant sees the palace as his own possession and is about to leave 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 for a bouquet, but is confronted by a hideous "Beast" who warns him that theft of his property (i.e., the rose) is a charge punishable by death. Realizing his deadly mistake, the merchant begs for forgiveness, revealing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. After listening to his story, the Beast reluctantly agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, but only if the merchant brings Beauty to him in exchange without deception; he makes it clear that Beauty must agree to take his place so he can treat her as his fiancée, and not his prisoner, while under no illusions about her predicament. Otherwise, the Beast will destroy his entire family.

At first, the merchant is upset about Beauty being abducted into marrying him, but he reluctantly accepts. The Beast sends him on his way atop a magical horse along with wealth, jewels and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, but stresses that Beauty must never know about his deal. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from his children, but Beauty pries it from him on purpose. Reacting swiftly, the brothers suggest they could go to the castle and fight the Beast together while the older sisters place blame on Beauty for dooming the entire family. To release her father from the engagement, Beauty volunteers to go to the Beast willingly, and her father reluctantly allows her to go.

Once she arrives at his palace, the Beast is excited to meet Beauty face to face, so he throws a welcome ceremony by treating her to an amazing cabaret. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her in which 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 dancing with a handsome prince. Suddenly, a fairy appears and pleads with Beauty to say why she keeps refusing him. She replies that she doesn't know how to love the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Despite the apparition of the fairy urging her not to be deceived by appearances, she does not make the connection between a "prince" and a "beast" and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the Prince captive somewhere in his castle. She searches and discovers many enchanted rooms ranging from libraries to aviaries to enchanted windows allowing her to attend the theater. She also finds live furniture and other live objects which act as servants, but never the Prince from her dreams.

For a month, Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace with no end to riches or amusements 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 in exactly two months. Beauty agrees to this and is presented with an enchanted ring which will take her back to the Beast when the two months are up. The rest of her family is surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. At first, her father advises her to marry the Beast, but when Beauty refuses, her father and her brothers do all they can to detain her return to the Beast. However, Beauty is determined to honor the deal she made.

When the two months are almost up, Beauty begins hallucinating the Beast lying dead in his quarters and uses her ring to return to the Beast. Once she is back in the castle, Beauty's fears are confirmed as she finds out that the Beast died of shame due to her choice of staying with her family permanently after her first trip to his castle. Completely devastated over the wrong choice she made, Beauty bursts into tears and laments that she should have learned how to love the Beast in the first place, screaming, "I am sorry! This was all my fault!". Suddenly, when she says those words, the Beast is transformed into the handsome prince from Beauty's dreams.

After the Beast becomes human once more, his backstory is revealed. He had been a prince whose father had died when he was very young. The army of a neighboring king then invaded the kingdom. The queen, the prince's mother, was forced to go off to war. She left her son in the care of a fairy who turned out to be evil. When the prince reached young manhood, the fairy tried to seduce him. When he rejected her advances, she transformed him into the Beast.

The prince's mother does not want her son to marry a merchant's daughter. The good fairy then reveals that Beauty is really a princess. She is the daughter of a king and another fairy. The wicked fairy wanted to marry Beauty's father and attempted to murder the baby girl. For her protection, the good fairy took Beauty away. She overheard a merchant say that his youngest daughter was seriously ill. The fairy discovered that, unknown to the merchant, his baby daughter had already died. The fairy took the dead girl away and left Beauty in her place. The merchant only finds out the truth about Beauty's origins when he goes to attend her wedding.

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.

Note: The last two paragraphs of the Plot section for Villeneuve's version of the fairytale are taken from the Literature wiki's article on the fairytale of Beauty and the Beast (view authors).

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 fairytale, 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 fairytale. ("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 fairytale, 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 genius" and "two subaltern and 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")
  • 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 "protective genius"
(Villeneuve version only)
Black Fairy "The Black Fairy"
Beast's other protectors ("two subaltern and invisible fairies")
(Villeneuve version only)
Blue Fairy (allusion)
Tiger Lily
"The Black Fairy"
Beauty Belle "Skin Deep"
Beauty's real father
(Villeneuve version only)
Sir Maurice "Skin Deep"
Beauty's real father's horse
(Villeneuve version only)
Maurice's horse "Her Handsome Hero"
Beauty's real mother
(Villeneuve version only)
Colette "Family Business"
Fairies
(Villeneuve version only)
Fairies "The Black Fairy"
The good fairy
(Villeneuve version only)
Blue Fairy (allusion) "Changelings"
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 posing as Morpheus "The Savior"

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 real 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

  1. Beauty and the Beast: A Tale of Child Marriage. Medium (April 1, 2017). “At the time of publication, women in France had few legal rights. Arranged marriages were common. Women could not control property, and girls were married off around the ages of fourteen or fifteen, often to men decades older. A girl who failed her role as a satisfactory wife risked being imprisoned in a mental asylum. In this context, the Beast represents the fear of young girls for their future marriage prospects: would the man be a monster? Would he abuse her? Mme Villeneuve's version can be read as a tale intended to prepare child brides of 18th century France for their role. Though the man appears to be a monster, she can learn to love him and accept her fate. Alternately, the story be seen as subtly critical of arranged marriages and an attempt to address the lack of choice girls faced within the arranged marriage system.”
  2. The Story of Beauty & the Beast: The complete fairy story translated from the French by Ernest Dowson. With four plates in colour by Charles Condor. (digitized eBook) pp. 73. Internet Archive. Retrieved on October 24, 2021. “On her return, she was filled with admiration at the effects of the care she had bestowed upon me, and she began to conceive for me a love which was different from the love of a mother. She had previously permitted me to call her by this name, but now she forbade me to do so.”
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 The Story of Beauty & the Beast: The complete fairy story translated from the French by Ernest Dowson. With four plates in colour by Charles Condor. (digitized eBook) pp. 96 – 97. Internet Archive. Retrieved on October 24, 2021. “It was then that the wicked Fairy the same that turned the young Prince here into the frightful Beast perceiving her confusion, became convinced that if she were to open the great book, she would find in it an important entry, which would enable her to exercise her evil inclinations. ' It is there,' she exclaimed, ' that the truth will be found, and there it is that we shall be able to learn what she has really been doing with herself! ' So saying, she fetched and opened the book and read aloud to the whole assembly all that my sister had done during the past two years. (...) As the assembly had appointed her to the guardianship of the young Prince, she would never have dared to leave him, had not the ingenuity of love inspired her with the idea of placing a protecting genius and two subaltern and invisible fairies to watch over him in her absence.”
  4. 4.0 4.1 The Story of Beauty & the Beast: The complete fairy story translated from the French by Ernest Dowson. With four plates in colour by Charles Condor. (digitized eBook) pp. 94 – 95. Internet Archive. Retrieved on October 24, 2021. “There must arise, in short, some unforeseen event, to make us go and consult the general book, in which all that we do is written down, without the aid of hands, at the very same instant that the action takes place.”
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