The Tale with a Thousand Faces: "Beauty and the Beast"

Abstract

The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast": A Handbook, by Jerry Griswold. Peterborough, ON: Broadview P, 2004. Fairy tale studies have come a long way in the last few decades: the scholar who wishes to study these stories as literature now has a small library at his or her command rather than just half a shelf or so. Yet most full-length studies still tend to be broad in the selections of the tales they consider, surveying several tales at once rather than only one or two in close detail. In fact, only three specific fairy tales have been the sole focus of book-length literary study: "Cinderella" (Alan Dundes's Cinderella: A Casebook); "Little Red Riding Hood" (Dundes's Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook, Jack Zipes's Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, and Catherine Orenstein's Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked); and "Beauty and the Beast" (Betsy Hearne, Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale). The fairy tale scholar today might then wonder why, with such a plethora of tales still to be analyzed, another full-length study of "Beauty and the Beast" is necessary. Griswold's "handbook," however, is indeed a useful addition to that scholar's library. The Meanings of Beauty and the Beast: A Handbook grew, according to the introduction, out of Griswold's personal obsession with this tale and is the result of more than ten years of thinking about its myriad meanings and forms. The aim of the text is to view "Beauty and the Beast" through a multifaceted lens, beating the bush, as Griswold describes it, to get to the heart or center of this story. In chapter one, citing as evidence the many ways in which the central theme of "Beauty and the Beast" is part of American popular culture, Griswold argues that "Beauty and the Beast" is the "dominant myth of our times" (18). Griswold postulates that the story appeals to modern society because it speaks to both men and women about our lost "wild side," what it means to be civilized. It also speaks about "Otherness" and helps us work out our cultural and personal reactions to Otherness in all its forms: what does it mean to be a "beast"? How do we define that nature, [End Page 214] and what is appealing about it? How do we define "beauty" and why do we value it? Chapter two, "The Tale and Its Author," focuses on the version of the story that was penned by Madame LePrince de Beaumont in 1756, which Griswold calls "definitive and most influential"(27). Griswold first offers his own version of Beaumont's tale, then follows with a brief examination of the character roles in her story. The chapter ends with a brief analysis of how the story reflects Beaumont's own experience with arranged marriages and as a governess. Griswold argues that Beaumont's story takes a middle position in the cultural debate of her time regarding arranged marriages: Beauty's free will plays a major role in the resolution of the tale, and she agrees to the marriage to the Beast because of her feelings of gratitude and affection, not romantic passion. Griswold argues that Beaumont's story can be viewed as "not only written by a governess (Beaumont herself) and told by a governess (Mrs. Affable), it also echoes the familiar Story of a Governess," later immortalized in Brontë's Jane Eyre (52). Chapter three is a brief, readable, though somewhat oversimplified survey of the three main critical approaches to "Beauty and the Beast": psychological, sociohistorical, and feminist. Griswold neatly sums up the Freudian and Jungian approaches to the tale, then moves to theories put forth by Jack Zipes as to how Beaumont's story reflects class conflicts and the historical issues of its time. He then takes up feminist critiques of the tale, noting that such opinions can be split into two camps: those who...