Beauty and the Beast

The Beast plays two parts in the novel—both love interest and antagonist. As a beast, he’s ugly and pretends to be ineloquent so as not to ruin his chance of breaking the curse. As the prince, he’s as “beautiful as Cupid is painted” (56), referring to the Roman god of attraction, son of Venus (goddess of love). The Beast represents the situation many women of Barbot De Villeneuve’s time found themselves in—married to men who were ugly and unwitty. The fact that he acts this way due to a curse may have symbolized Barbot De Villeneuve’s hopes for a better world for women, suggesting that the curse (rules of society) could be broken so that women might wed someone they loved rather than someone who made a profitable match.

While the Beast is an antagonist, the prince is the opposite. His handsome appearance and nearly instant feelings for Beauty make him someone Beauty quickly and easily comes to love. Although the palace offers many wonders, books, and performances, Beauty prefers her dreams because the prince is there. The prince represents the kind of man Barbot De Villeneuve likely saw as desirable. While the prince shows affection for Beauty, he’s also a source of frustration because he consistently tells Beauty not to be deceived by appearances and to give the Beast a chance. In doing so, he foreshadows that he and the Beast are the same person while creating the tension for Beauty to choose. Together, the prince and Beast symbolize the book’s theme Appearances Versus Reality. The Beast seems to genuinely care for Beauty, but his appearance repulses her. By contrast, the prince sends mixed messages, but Beauty is strongly attracted to him.

The merchant is a catalyst for Beauty meeting the Beast and the story’s main conflict. In the final chapters, the fairy reveals that the merchant isn’t Beauty’s true father and that she left Beauty in place of his youngest daughter who died in infancy. She did so specifically to make it likely that Beauty would encounter the Beast, which makes the merchant more of a plot device than a character. His main purpose is to lose everything so that his family must move to their country home near the woods that surround the castle. The fairy doesn’t detail her exact plan for making certain that Beauty meets the Beast, but the narrative infers that the fairy is at least partly responsible for the tragedy that befalls the merchant’s family, give that such an all-encompassing string of poor fortune is unlikely without supernatural involvement.

The story presents Beauty’s sisters as a single unit, and their main purpose is to highlight the differences between them and Beauty. While Beauty is tender and caring, the sisters are obsessed with material things and status. They resent Beauty because her positivity makes them appear selfish, and Beauty’s ability to love and forgive them, even though the sisters hate her through the end of the book, further supports Beauty’s character. The sisters may represent Barbot De Villeneuve’s view of the typical woman of Beauty’s time. While Barbot De Villeneuve received an education and financially supported herself, many women of the time did neither and relied on their husbands to provide everything for them. The unflattering light in which the narrative paints the sisters suggests that the author didn’t think fondly of such women.

The prince’s mother appears only in the final chapters, and she represents Barbot De Villeneuve bowing to the conventions of society. At the time, status and birth were important, and a person from royalty wouldn’t have been permitted to marry a poor girl from a lower-class family. The queen’s main purpose is to question the union between Beauty and her son, which prompts the fairy to detail Beauty’s true royal origins. The love that Beauty and the prince show for one another moves the queen, so she gives them permission to marry before she learns that Beauty is royalty. This likely represents Barbot De Villeneuve’s desire for women to be free to choose who they wed, regardless of societal barriers.