Beauty and the Beast

“Beauty and the Beast” is, along with “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Mermaid,” a popular fairy tale that has an author. While it has been suggested that “Cupid and Psyche” must be the original “Beauty and the Beast,” the story that we know was written by Madame Leprince de Beaumont as a cautionary tale for girls. Madame de Villenueve wrote a precursor to the tale, and there are a number of folk tales from around the world with similar stories.

In this story, there is a handsome prince who has been enchanted into the shape of a fearsome beast until a beautiful maiden loves him for himself alone, not for his good looks, intelligence, and riches. He is living in a beautiful palace in the middle of a forest. One day, a merchant is driven to take shelter in his castle by a snowstorm. The merchant has three daughters, two of whom are ill-natured girls, but the third is called “Beauty,” and she is sweet and virtuous, and loves to read. When the merchant set out on his journey, the two older girls asked him to bring them fancy clothes, but Beauty just asked for a rose.

The merchant takes shelter in the castle and spends the night there without seeing the Beast. As he leaves, he picks a rose from the beautiful garden, to take to Beauty. The Beast jumps out and threatens to kill him. The merchant pleads for his life, and the Beast says he will spare the merchant’s life if he will send one of his daughters in his place. The merchant pretends to agree, and goes home to say goodbye to  his daughters.

Beauty insists on going in the merchant’s palace, and the Beast treats her well, although he asks her to marry him every day. He even allows her to go home and visit her family. While she is gone, the Beast nearly dies of despair, but Beauty returns in time to save his life. She tells him she will marry him, and thus ends the enchantment.

Predictably enough, they live happily ever after.

Max Eilenberg has done a charming picture book of Beauty and the Beast. Robert Sabuda’s Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale is as wonderful as the rest of his books.

Critical Thinking

• This is an excellent story to use with older students for comparison with other fairy and folk tales. Consider “The Frog Prince” and “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” or Lawrence Yep’s The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty & the Beast Tale.  Bring out the Venn Diagrams!
• Most students will be familiar with the Disney version of this story, and that will also make an interesting comparison. Consider that the Disney studio wanted the story to make a good movie. Were the changes they made — adding and removing characters, etc. — required for that purpose?
• Watch the video below with your class, and challenge them to make a Top Ten Beastliest Beasts list of their own:

Character Education

• Beauty is beautiful, hardworking, and virtuous, as fairy tale heroines usually are. She is also studious and intelligent. So is the Beast. Their interest in books is specifically mentioned in the story. This is unusual in fairy tales. Have students compare “Beauty and the Beast” with other fairy tales they’ve read, and decide whether Beauty is actually more intelligent than the average heroine, or if the author is unusual in having mentioned her intelligence.
• The Beast has to hide his intelligence and good looks as part of the enchantment, so that Beauty can only love him for his kindness and good character. Is her physical beauty just a coincidence, or does this reflect a double standard for males and females? Do we still have such a double standard?
• The older sisters in the story are portrayed as proud and vain. Some retellings of the story also explain that the handsome prince has been turned into a Beast because of his pride, and has to discover how hard it is to impress people without his outward appearance. Is the importance of humility and virtue the moral of the story? If so, do students agree that it is a good moral? Many Americans today would not. Consider a debate on the subject.

Social Studies

• Another way in which this story is unusual is in having a merchant as a main character. Most fairy tales involve peasants and royalty, but “Beauty and the Beast” reflects the rise of the middle class in Europe. If you are studying this in your social studies classes,bring this story in for an interesting economics/literature connection.
• Beauty is not a passive heroine in this story. Does the difference between Beauty and, say, Cinderella show changes in the world between the 17th century when Cinderella was written and the 18th century Beauty, or is it the difference between a male author and a female one — or some thing else entirely? Challenge students to research this question and write persuasive essays supporting their answers.

Science

• The Beast in the various illustrations for this story is depicted as something like a bear, a walrus, a warthog, or some other animal. Have students scour books, magazines,and the internet for pictures of unusual animals on which they might like to base their idea of the Beast. Challenge them to draw their own versions of the Beast, incorporating and labeling characteristics of the real-life animal they chose.
• Transformation from one species to another is definitely the stuff of magic, but here is an interesting PDF file on genetic modification.

Music

• “Beauty and the Beast” has been made into a Broadway musical (Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: The Broadway Musical) by Alan Menken and an opera (La Belle & La Bete) by Philip Glass. Both these works were based on movies. Discuss the place of movies in modern culture.
• ReadWriteThink has a lesson plan on movie music that could make a great homework assignment.
• There is also a ballet of “Beauty and the Beast” choreographed by David Nixon, using music from a collection of important modern composers: Saint-Säens, Poulenc, Bizet, Debussy, Fauré, and Mussorgsky, among others. Take the opportunity to let kids listen to and research these composers.

Art

• Corey Jensen has made a paper doll of the Disney version of the story. Have students make more clothes for Belle, create dolls of other characters from the story, or make their own idea of Beauty.