Why did ‘Beauty and the Beast’ become popular when it did? This is difficult to pinpoint for sure, and any analysis of the fairy tale’s popularity must be based partly on conjecture, but it’s possible to see it as a tale promoting the idea of marriage to someone you might not necessarily find attractive: it is significant that Beauty’s father is a merchant, and his daughters either want to marry wealthy and aristocratic men or else it is expected that they will.Īrranged marriages were common in France at the time: was ‘Beauty and the Beast’, in the last analysis, a sort of ‘handbook’ for young brides entering into marriages with hideous older men, all hair and bad breath but with a good kind heart underneath (if they were lucky)? It’s not that there’s no way of interpreting or analysing this so that it makes sense, just that the story’s moral is not as straightforward as it is in some other fairy tales.

Beauty’s reward for prizing virtue above physical good looks is … an attractive husband.

Beauty only comes to love the Beast because she is placed under house arrest at his home she initially doesn’t want to be there.Īnd the moral of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ seems to be all over the place. Stockholm Syndrome: this has made the tale of Beauty and the Beast unpalatable in some circles. Beauty and the Prince Formerly Known as Beast get married and live happily ever after. The fairy turns Beauty’s two older sisters into statues, so that they must forever look on their younger sister’s happiness: this is the punishment for their malice. A beautiful fairy appears, and uses magic to transport Beauty’s father and her sisters to the palace.

Beauty and the beast gabrielle