"Beauty and the Beast" by Jeanne-Marie LePrince De Beaumont

"Beauty and the Beast" by Jeanne-Marie LePrince De Beaumont is a similar retelling of our cultural Disney understanding of the fairytale. The story starts out saying, "once upon a time there was a very wealthy merchant who lived with his children, three boys, and three girls" (32). One of the daughters was so alluring she was known as "the beautiful child." One day, the father unexpectedly lost all his fortune. The family lived in poverty for an entire year before the father received information that a ship containing his merchandise had arrived. Before he left, his two oldest daughters begged for materialistic items while Beauty only asked for a rose. He journeyed to the port only to find out there was a lawsuit over all his merchandise. On his way home, the father got caught in a storm and noticed a light in the distance. Starving and exhausted, he followed the light and found a castle where he let himself in. After falling asleep there, he was ready to leave in the morning but noticed a rose bush and picked one for Beauty. The Beast saw this action occur and said he would only spare the father’s life if he gave up one of his daughters. When Beauty caught news, she told her father that she must go and proceeded to make her way to the castle. The Beast immediately fell in love with Beauty, but it took quite awhile until Beauty felt the same. After proposing almost every time he saw her, Beauty finally accepted and was ready to spend the rest of her life with the Beast. The moment she said yes to his proposal, celebration began and the Beast suddenly turned into a handsome young man. He explained to Beauty how an evil fairy made him stay in that form until he found a beautiful girl to marry him. The story ends with the typical, “happily ever after” and Beauty and him both then lived in perfect happiness.

The Disney portrayal of Beauty and the Beast is different from the Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont “Beauty and the Beast.” One way is that in the movie, Beauty is an only child, whereas in the book, she has five siblings. Also, in the Disney version, Beauty and her father have never been rich. However, in the book, the kids grew up with a wealthy father.Something particularly different from the books is that in the book Beauty finds he father in the woods lost and sick.In the movie the audience is given a reason why the Beast is turned in to a Beast whereas in the book the reader is never given a reason for being turned in to a Beast. Another major difference between the two is that in the book, there is no character named Gaston. Gaston is a character who is portrayed as a villain and he thinks because he is who he is that he should have Belle who is the “fairest of them all.” The only reason I can think that Gaston’s character was put in the movie was because Disney could not completely follow the story. 

Question 1: Who does Beauty go to see in hopes to save her father? 

Question 2: Why is it so important to Beauty that she goes to the Beast instead of her father? 

Question 3: What are some of the main virtues Beauty shows throughout this story and how do they differ from how children act in the world today? 

By Katrina, Jordan, Rosie, and Hannah