Loving looks vs. marriage

One difference that I noticed between de Beaumont’s version and Cocteau’s film was act which was required for the Beast to turn into a handsome prince. In Cocteau’s film, someone must give the Beast a loving look for him to transform. This is interesting because the Beast tells Beauty not to look him in the eye when she firs enters the castle. On the other hand, in de Beaumont’s tale, which reminds me a lot of the Disney movie, someone must promise the Beast their hand in marriage for him to transform. When I researched the dates of these two pieces, I found that Beaumont’s version had to be written sometime in the 1700s, while the film came out in 1946. I may be over-analyzing this, but perhaps the change in the story reflects changing beliefs of the times. Like Shavit’s argument that fairy tales reflect the concept of childhood, I would like to suggest that perhaps fairy tales also can reflect the status of marriage in a culture.

Sahil Patel - Beauty and the Beast

While the inclusion of the Avenant character is an intriguing element in the film that does not occur in de Beaumont's written version of Beauty and the Beast, I think the different depictions of the castle/mansion is the most interesting difference. In the written story by de Beaumont, the castle is depicted in a much more positive light. It is described as a beautiful castle with gardens and flowers on the outside and ornate rooms inside. The castle is basically portrayed as a seemingly deserted palatial residence. However, in the movie there is a stark difference. The castle is extremely dark and seems to be very dangerous. There is almost no light. There are chandeliers that are held up by moving hands. Heads moving around and looking at the father. The entire place is very dark, ominous, and creepy - a stark opposite from the depiction in the book. It basically looks like the perfect setting for a horror movie or death scene. Furthermore, the music played during the scene where the father finds the castle only further helps the dark presence of the building. I think all of the differences in the film version of the story when compared to the written version serves to further establish the Beast character in a negative light. In de Beaumont's version, he is ugly, but he is kind and generous and the castle is opulent. However, Cocteau utilizes the film medium to further depict the original negative connotations inherent in the Beast character. No one would want to live there. So the sacrifice that Belle makes is much more vivid, much more tangible.

March 10th

At risk of making a fool of myself, I'm going to post about the ending of the film. Even though everyone in my showing laughed at how cheesy it seemed (come on, it was 1946), I personally thought that it is a better ending than the written version for one simple reason: no one gets punished (aside from Avenant).
The simplicity and beauty of the ending is made much more obvious when you compare it to the book or the Disney version. The union of the two lovers is the reward. There doesn't need to be a big, grand wedding to show off to anyone, nor does there need to be punishments handed out to every transgressor. We really shouldn't care, at the end, about what happens to the evil sisters or the scoundrel brother. Perhaps their sister's happiness is punishment enough for them.

March 10 "Beauty and the Beast"

The introduction of the character Avenant in the Cocteau version was very interesting to me. The most intriguing part was the fact that the Beast looked like him in the end after turning into a man. In De Beaumont's version there is no other suitor for Belle, she simply learns to love the Beast and her love turns him back into a man. In Cocteau's film, Belle does love Avenant but doesn't marry him because he would take her away from her father. However, in the end she agrees to marry the Beast who has already taken her away from her entire family and the Beast ends up being an Avenant look-alike. I wonder if, in a way, Cocteau is saying that once Belle knew she could be away from her father and her family could take of itself, then she could let herself be married and love had little to do with it.
Audra Crosby

Assignment: 10 March 2009

Since many of you still need to watch the Cocteau film, posts will be due at midnight on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

Pick one scene or element from Cocteau's "La Belle et La Bête" and compare it or contrast it with de Beaumont's version. You might pick something that interests you, that seems odd, or something that you missed in one version or the other, for example.

Pepelyouga (Serbia)

This is a pretty drastic retelling. The story begins with a clumsy mistake by Pepelyouga (Cinderella), where she drops her basket off of a cliff. Because of this, her mother is turned into a cow. The father remarries, and the step-mother challenges Pepelyouga to spin a top out of hemp. Pepelyouga almost fails, but is assisted by a cow who turns out to be her mother. The step-mother has this cow slaughtered, and Pepelyouga makes sure that the bones receive proper burial (this moment of the tale definitely borrows from The Juniper Tree).
Soon, she is ordered to clean up millet while her family goes to church. She receives help at the tree where her mother's bones rest, finds new clothes in a treasure chest, and goes to church, where she meets a prince (This adds a religious moral to the tale). This church service happens three times, and on the third time, she runs off too quickly and loses her golden slipper.
The ending is exactly the same as the other tales. The prince goes door to door, making women try on the golden slipper. However, what is interesting is that after Pepelyouga and the Prince get married, absolutely nothing happens to the step-family. No one is punished or rewarded other than Pepelyouga.

The Wicked Stepmother from Kashmir

I found “The Wicked Stepmother” (from Kashmir) on Ashliman’s folk site to be very interesting. In it, a husband and wife promise each other not to eat anything, lest they turn into animals. One day, the husband came home to find a goat in his house, and knew it must be his wife, so he kept it tied up in the yard. The husband remarried, and the new wife was mean to the children and would not feed them, so the goat told her children to tap her horns with a stick and food would fall down. The stepmother was confused about how the children were getting bigger and stronger, so she sent her one-eyed daughter to watch them for a day and note where they got any food. Then, the stepmother faked an illness and convinced the doctor to have the goat killed and eaten as a remedy. The children were instructed by the goat to gather her bones and bury them and then food would be provided, and it was. One day, one of the daughters was washing her face in a river when her nose ring fell out and a fish ate it. The Prince’s cook found the ring in the fish, and the Prince wanted its owner to find him. He was so enamored with her beauty that he married her and provided for her family.

I thought this version of Cinderella was so interesting because of its staggering differences from the version I was brought up with. First, the Prince does not have parties to meet his wife. He simply wants to return a nose ring to its owner, and happens to find her beautiful. He did not have any goal of finding a Queen. Second, the man’s first wife did not die, but rather was turned into an animal and then acted as the “fairy godmother.” In the versions I am used to, the wife dies and another person acts as fairy godmother. Third, there is not a rivalry between the children of the first wife and the child of the second wife. The only resentment happens between the new wife and the old children. The lack of evil step-sisters really surprised me. Overall, the differences between cultures leading to the extremely different Cinderella stories are what brought my attention to this tale.