essay on beauty and the beast

A Summary and Analysis of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Perhaps such an august fairy tale of such fine vintage deserves closer analysis, since it’s clearly spoken to many cultures across a vast time span. What makes ‘Beauty and the Beast’ so intellectually satisfying (to borrow the Opies’ phrase), and why has it endured?

Plot summary

Well, first, here’s a quick reminder or summary of the plot of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. A wealthy merchant has three daughters, the youngest of which is admired widely for her beauty, and comes to be known simply as ‘Beauty’.

Her older sisters are far prouder than she is, and let it be known that they will only marry an earl or duke. When their father loses his fortune, the two older sisters find it difficult to adjust to a life of penury, but the loyal and modest Beauty sets about finding ways to help out her father around the house.

After a year of this, their merchant-father receives a letter telling him that a ship containing some of his property has arrived in port, so he sets off to meet it.

He asks his daughters what gifts they would like him to bring back for them: the two eldest daughters ask for expensive gowns and jewels, but Beauty requests a simple rose. Their father sets off, but after the legal hearing concerning the ship’s property, he leaves with nothing, and begins the despondent journey home.

On his way, he gets lost in the woods, and comes upon a house where he takes refuge. This great house appears to be empty, and the merchant falls asleep in it, and wakes to find that breakfast has been prepared for him. Going out into the garden, he remembers his promise to Beauty, and so plucks a single rose from the bush – at which point, a fearsome Beast appears, declaring that he is the owner of the house and that the merchant has insulted his hospitality by stealing a rose like this.

The Beast says he will kill the merchant, but the merchant begs for his life, and the Beast says he will allow the merchant to live, as long as he returns home and brings back one of his daughters to be killed in his stead. Failing that, in three months’ time the merchant must return and face his fate.

The merchant, seizing the opportunity to see his daughters again, agrees, and the Beast gives him a bag full of coins to be on his way home. When he arrives home, the merchant keeps the money a secret, but tells his children about his promise to the Beast.

When Beauty hears about it, she says she will follow her father back to the Beast’s palace, since she won’t allow him to be killed for her (it was because he plucked a rose for Beauty that the Beast sentenced him to death).

At the palace, the Beast sees that both Beauty and her father have arrived, and so he dismisses the father, who reluctantly and despondently returns home, convinced that the Beast will eat up his daughter at the palace.

But the Beast treats Beauty well, who in turn is kind to the Beast: she admits that she finds him physically ugly, but she sees that he has a good heart underneath. He asks her to marry him, and she says no. Not content with this, the Beast continues to ask Beauty every night if she will marry him, but each night she says no.

Beauty, learning that her older sisters have married and her father is all alone at home, asks the Beast if she might go and visit him. The Beast agrees, since he cannot bear to see Beauty unhappy, but as long as she agrees to return after a week.

Beauty agrees to this, but when she is at home with her father, her sisters – jealous of their sister, who has been given the finest clothes by the Beast, while they have married horrible husbands – return home and conspire to use emotional blackmail to make Beauty stay away from the Beast for longer than a week. They hope that by doing so, the Beast will be enraged and will come and devour Beauty!

But after she has been at home for ten nights, Beauty grows ill at ease. Why did she refuse to marry Beast, just because he is ugly? He is kind and caring and worships her, and wants to make her happy. She would be happier with him than her sisters are with their selfish and cruel husbands. So she resolves to return to the palace.

But when she gets there, she finds the Beast on the floor, unconscious; bringing him round, he reveals that when she didn’t return as promised, he resolved to starve himself. Now she has returned, he can die happy. But Beauty says she will marry him, and longs for him to live.

No sooner has Beauty said this than the Beast disappears, and is replaced by a handsome young prince, who tells her that an evil fairy cast a spell over him, transforming him into a hideous creature; he would only be freed from the spell when a young woman agreed to marry him. Beauty has freed him from the wicked spell.

A beautiful fairy appears, and uses magic to transport Beauty’s father and her sisters to the palace. 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. Beauty and the Prince Formerly Known as Beast get married and live happily ever after.

Stockholm Syndrome: this has made the tale of Beauty and the Beast unpalatable in some circles. 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.

And the moral of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ seems to be all over the place. Beauty’s reward for prizing virtue above physical good looks is … an attractive husband. 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.

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.

Arranged 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)?

Different versions

‘Beauty and the Beast’ appeared in Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s Magasin des enfans, ou dialogues entre une sage Gouvernante et plusieurs de ses Élèves in 1756. But in fact, as already noted, the basic plot of the story dates back far earlier. There was a 1740 version (much longer) also published in French, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, and this is the first version of the tale of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ as we now know it.

Before that, Madame d’Aulnoy, French queen of the fairy tale (and originator of the term), had written ‘Mouton’, or ‘The Royal Ram’, which appeared in an English translation in 1721, and shares some similarities with ‘Beauty and the Beast’. But there is also a similar tale in the Pentamerone from the 1630s, involving a monster marrying a beautiful princess.

The Opies mention a popular non-western version in which ‘a crocodile changes into a fine man when his bride consents to lick his face.’ Even The Golden Ass , from the 2 nd century AD, we get a version of the story involving Cupid and Psyche. In short, we’ve been fascinated by this idea of hideous beasts marrying beautiful women for a long while. Perhaps what that tells us about marriage and the sexes is best left unexplored.

Continue to explore the world of fairy tales with these classic Victorian fairy stories , our discussion of the Bluebeard myth , and our analysis of the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairy tale .

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4 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Fairy Tale”

Could it be men see themselves as beasts wanting to desecrate beauty of women?

Shows that a father is wiling to sacrifice his child to save his own life. Men, including the christian god do things like that all the time. Children are goods to be given away or traded for something. It again shows how evil sisters, step or otherwise, are to each other. Bitter competition or jealousy over men who can care for them, since women are never allowed to take care of themselves and are always forced into dependency. Shows how beauty, in women is not appreciated by other women but seen as something to hate and envy, so no sisterhood there either. Women turning on women, hating, ganging up on the pretty one, Cinderella, etc., always women hating. Women sent to die. Boys/princes are never motherless, jus the girls/princesses. Dead women are the best women in a lot of fairy tales and the dead ones are usually the nice mothers. So this is just one more tale about horrible fathers who care more about themselves then they do their daughters. Men getting what they want and females hating each other. Sigh. Blah.

Hmm, I just reviewed this very story when Theatre By The Lake produced it over the Christmas period. As usual, I researched it before writing my review and I have to say I was left disquieted. I was taken aback by the final ‘message’ of the play that ‘a beautiful innocent can marry a monster and change him into a prince’.

Given the history of the publication(s) – namely to prepare well-to-do French girls for arranged marriages – the implications are clear. It is selling a myth that if you are pious and virtuous, well-behaved and do all that is expected of you, you can turn your monster of a husband into something decent. By implication then, if your husband remains a monster, you must be getting it wrong and need to work harder.

For me, I find this somewhat unpalatable and feel Beauty and the Beast needs to be consigned to the realm of ‘stories we don’t like to talk about any more’. Especially noting the continued popularity of both film versions. Young girls are still getting the message in a rather covert but definite way. My own experience is that my own daughter remains a fan even in adult life now and she’s far from alone in the area where we live. We storytellers have to careful with the messages we bring….

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Beauty and the Beast

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Do you think the revelations and backstory in Chapters 7 and 8 help the story? Why or why not? If you rewrote the novel, would you include all this information? If so, would you keep it at the end or incorporate it into the rest of the story? Why? If you eliminated any information, what would you eliminate and why?

Compare the commentary Barbot De Villeneuve makes on 1740s society to societal norms today. Do you think society has achieved the ideals she promoted in Beauty and the Beast ? Why or why not? If not, what changes remain incomplete, and how might society achieve them? If society has reached Barbot De Villeneuve’s ideal, what might be the next challenge for society to tackle, and could lessons from Beauty and the Beast help with this challenge? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.

Given that the story is a tale of ideals for women, what did you expect from Beauty’s character, and was she what you expected? Why or why not? If so, what parts of her personality made her true to your expectations, and why those parts? If not, what did you expect from her, and how might her character have differed to more accurately reflect who you expected her to be?

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Beauty and the Beast

This essay will analyze the themes and symbolism in the story “Beauty and the Beast.” It will explore the narrative’s messages about beauty, love, and transformation, and its cultural and historical significance as a classic fairy tale. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Beauty.

How it works

Famously known for its features of movies and animation, the beauty and the beast is a fairly classic tale that audience enjoy watching and reading in it novel version. Even though many people think of the beast’s home when an idea of beauty and beast rings in their mind, the movie covers more elements than most of its audience think about. The aspect of the movie covering a wider scope than the expectations of the audience is brought about by the fact that the story covered in the film takes place in different settings.

Irrespective of the movie has different settings ” the mother setting of the movie is based in France and then goes to the countryside. Important to mention is that the film bears different version dating back to mid-1700. The most accepted version of the Beauty and the best exposes the audience to Belle the main character in a small province in French town.

At the small French province, Belle lives an impoverished life with her dad in a small town, but on some occasions, she is seen in the city square. In addition to the story showing a town setting, much of the contemporary story is set in a less illuminated dreary castle. The villa is located high above the town and deep in a forest. It is in the castle that most of the events of the story unveil (Rudnick, Elizabeth, Evan Stephen & Bill, p. 19).

Considering the facts presented in the above paragraph, it can be argued that the beauty and the beast comprise of two major settings. The first setting is the provincial town where Belle lives with her family friends and the place where ghastly Gaston stays. The second setting is in the castle where the beast stays. Since many events of the story take place in the castle, it is point clear that the castle is the main setting.

The plot of the story reveals the life of a young Prince Adam who was cursed by old women for both of his arrogant traits and not showing love. Before the curse was spelled to the Prince, he was spending his time together with the individual’s servants in a castle (Rudnick et al., p.100). The old beggar woman came to the castle begging for shelter, but the prince turned her away. From his arrogant behavior, the prince and his clue are turned into revolting Beast until the prince learns how to love and be loved back. The only way that the prince could break the curse was through learning how to love and be loved back before the last petal of the rose awarded to him by the woman beggar.

Ten years after the curse had been cast on the priest, Maurice an investor from a neighboring village loses his way in the woods and makes up his mind to seek shelter from the beasts castle. To his amazement, the beast imprisons him for trespassing. It is at this juncture that the audience is introduced to Belle, the daughter of Maurice. Belle is a bookworm girl who is determined to lead her life beyond her regional rural community. Belle discovers her father ensnared by the beast and offers her life to stay at the castle in exchange for her fathers freedom.

The beast (Prince) accepts the offer with a promise that Belle will remain in the castle for the rest of her life. At first, Belle views the beast as nothing more than a monster and difficult and stubborn to cope with. As the story continues to flow, Belle and the Beast start tasting the bitter-sweetness of finding out that one can after learning the wrongs one had committed (Rudnick et al., p. 119).

With the assistance of the priest’s charmed slaves such as Mrs. Potts, Belle draws the arrogant beast out of his segregation. Narrated in the third person omniscient the story falls under the genre of romance, legend, mythology, and quest. Making use of the point of view identified the narrator can develop the major characters of the story as stipulated below.

The major character, Belle, forms the center of the story. Through her actions of accepting to free her father, Belle comes out a courageous, loving woman.

The second character in the movie Cogswort is one gay clock who happens to be in love with a lady by name Lumiere. Together with his lover, the two characters can be described as secretive since they kept their relationship in secret out of fear of the Beast.

The third character who shapes the events of the story is Gaston. The primary role of the character is an expression of the theme of gender and sexuality. Making use of the mentioned outlined characters the story covered in the movie reveals various love, sacrifice and exile.

The theme of love and how strong love does is identified in the fact that Belle through her courageous was able to change the Beast in prince. Sacrifice is also portrayed in Belles selfless trait of saving her father from his captivity.

Works cited

Rudnick, Elizabeth, Evan Spiliotopoulos, Stephen Chbosky, and Bill Condon. Beauty and the Beast. Los Angeles: Disney Press, 2017.

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"Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales Essay Questions

By jeanne-marie leprince de beaumont, essay questions.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Elizabeth Shaw and other people who wish to remain anonymous

What does the rose represent in "Beauty and the Beast?"

The rose is ultimately a symbol of Beauty's authenticity and kindness. When her father leaves the home to go on a business trip, he asks his daughters what they would like as presents. Although Beauty's sisters ask for expensive gifts, Beauty instead asks for a single rose. This reveals Beauty's kind and considerate nature, as she understands her father is struggling with debt.

Why can't the fairy change the prince?

In "Prince Darling," the king is concerned about his son, as he is unsure if he is a good person. The king therefore asks the fairy to change his son into a good man, but she tells him that this cannot be done. This is because she is unable to change a man's nature and his morality. Ultimately, this represents the fact that a person's goodness must come from within.

How are Beauty's sisters punished?

Beauty's sisters reveal themselves to be superficial and unkind. As a result, they are punished by being turned into statues. Unless they amend their behavior, they are destined to watch Beauty as she leads a happy and fulfilled life.

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“Beauty and the Beast” and Other Tales Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for “Beauty and the Beast” and Other Tales is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

From the story of the fiction movie entitled BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ," identify the parts that corresponds to every element of the fiction.

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Assess the following resume and write a short write upon your comments on each resume/applicant.

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"Hurray!" cheered Jess, as she ran down the stairs. “Why are you making so much noise?” asked her mother in annoyance. However, Jess was too excited to notice or hear her mother, who was standing with her hands on her hips waiting to be...

Study Guide for “Beauty and the Beast” and Other Tales

"Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales study guide contains a biography of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About "Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales
• "Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales Summary
• Character List

Essays for “Beauty and the Beast” and Other Tales

"Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of "Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.

• The Themes and Evolution of the 'Beauty and the Beast' Fairytale
• Tale as Old as Time: A Feminist View of Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast'
• Disney Meets Sociology: Analyzing Individuals and Communities in 'Beauty and The Beast'

Wikipedia Entries for “Beauty and the Beast” and Other Tales

• Introduction

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Beauty and The Beast — Analyzing “Beauty and the Beast”: The Feminist Lens

Analyzing "Beauty and The Beast": The Feminist Lens

• Categories: Beauty and The Beast Feminist Literary Criticism

About this sample

Words: 915 |

Published: Sep 16, 2023

Words: 915 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Beauty's autonomy and agency, the beast: from dominance to partnership, supporting characters and societal norms, feminist critiques of the tale.

• Zipes, Jack. “Beauty and the Beast: From Myth to Fairy Tale.” In Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale , 61-82. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.
• Baker-Sperry, Lori, and Liz Grauerholz. “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales.” Gender and Society , vol. 17, no. 5, 2003, pp. 711–726.

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"Beauty and the Beast" Movie Review: Analysis of Themes and Visuals

Table of contents, visual splendor and enchanting design, exceptional performances, timeless themes and modern sensibilities, the musical magic.

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Feminist Empowerment in “Beauty and the Beast:” An Analysis of Beauty’s Feminist Qualities from 1740 to 2017

We’re pleased to have Abby Elkins brings us the guest post this week from Dr. Rudy’s Applied English class from Winter 2017. Please enjoy!

Understanding the progressive nature of Belle’s character is strengthened when considering her origins in the mid 18 th century. 18 th century literature primarily shows a narrative with increasing female passivity and tightening domestic encirclement including themes of duty, resignation and elegance. The 18 th century also showed the emergence of the female gothic genre, characterized by gloomy castles, treacherous forests and feminine societal and sexual desires. M. H. Abrams defines the female gothic as an opportunity for women writers to attribute “features of the mode [of Gothicism] as the result of the suppression of female sexuality, or else as a challenge to the gender hierarchy and values of a male-dominated culture.” It is with this female gothic approach that both Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont composed their versions of “Beauty and the Beast.” They used their real-life experience to bring attention to societal and gender inequality through their stories.

Villeneuve was married in 1706 to Jean-Baptiste Gaalon de Villeneuve, a wealthy member of an aristocratic family. After just six months of marriage, she requested a separation of property from her husband, who had freely spent the majority of their inheritance during their first months together. Her husband died just five years later, leaving her a widow at age 26. Subsequently she lost her fortune, moved to Paris, became friends with famous playwright Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, and began to support herself through writing. She published her version of “Beauty and the Beast” in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins, showing a royal Belle with magical powers .  In Villeneuve’s version, it is Belle, the female protagonist, who has exclusive power to rescue the Beast and his kingdom from danger.

Almost two hundred years later, director Jean Cocteau released a gothic adaptation of Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast.” The following clip shows the Beast’s castle coming alive for Belle, which had previously remained dark and foreboding to the film’s male characters. Belle is the savior of the cursed castle and the film’s score welcomes her with a chorus of heavenly angels. This can also be symbolically viewed as Belle being a savior for women’s rights and gender equality.

In Disney’s most recent adaptation of the tale, Belle, as portrayed by feminist Emma Watson, is even more progressive. She is independent, an inventor, an avid reader and strongly declares, “I’m not a princess,” when given a gown to wear. Both Belles also hold a unique capacity for kindness that their fellow villagers do not. They show compassion to their aging fathers and selfless sympathy towards the Beast. Although both Belles are physically beautiful, Disney places an emphasis on their beautiful and kind hearts. This move gives empowerment to women as the character Belle is not objectified by mere physical attributes.

Since the 1700s, the character of Beauty or Belle has brought light to women everywhere who gain hope from her strong choices, selflessness, inner beauty, love for knowledge, and unconformity. The continual and frequent adaptations of the tale prove its importance and invite women and girls to believe in themselves. The much desired “happily ever after” can be achieved in a myriad of ways and is not secluded to a typical “fairy tale” ending.

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Beauty and the Beast: An Abusive Tale as Old as Time: Reinforcing Notions of Masculinity, Abuse and Neoliberal Anxiety through Popular Culture

InterDisciplinary Press

This article explores the television series Beauty and the Beast (2012) (currently airing). The article argues that discourses about gender and systems of domination at large have reinforced notions of masculinity, in turn perpetuating violence towards women. Even further, today’s monstrous creations are a product of their time. Through systems such as neoliberalism, whiteness and patriarchy, monstrous and hybrid characters are able to reflect newer forms of gender and racial identity. This article argues that some of today’s monstrous creations are symptomatic of colonial anxiety and are a direct result of dominant ideological structures within today’s contemporary storytelling. Fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast are portrayed through a white male gaze; therefore, reflecting even deeper anxieties within the U.S. and beyond. For this reason there is a need to identify the discrepancies that white heteronormativity has perpetuated through popular media. By pinpointing these incongruities, one can create platforms in order to formulate strategies to empower non-white heteronormativity practices.

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Meg D Lonergan

American Horror Story: Coven (2013) is the third season of the popular horror anthology on FX 1. Set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana, the plot centers on Miss Ro-bichaux's Academy and its new class of female students-witches descended from the survivors of the witch trials in Sa-lem, Massachusetts in 1692 2. The all-girls school is supposed to be a haven for witches to learn about their heritage and powers while fostering a community which protects them from the anti-witch prejudices of the outside world, however, it soon becomes clear that the coven in under attack both from in-fighting within and from multiple forces outside of the coven as well. While the show deals explicitly with issues regarding femininity and race, the show implicitly deals with issues of modern feminism through their use of witches. There is a well-known history of associating feminists as both "witches" and "bitches". Less well known is the deep association and critique of whiteness pervading academic, mainstream and celebrity feminisms (Mohanty 2003, 169-189; Moreton-Robinson 2010; Wicke 1994). This paper borrows from Dina Georgis' concept of "the better story" (2003), that is, that stories are "emotional resources for political imagination and for political renew-al" (Georgis 2013, 1). Georgis argues that: "Story, understood psychoanalytically and metonymi-cally, stands for the way we narrate the past, seek and transmit knowledge, and imagine our future. Story is the principle of how we seek to make sense of human experience" (Georgis 2013, 1). I argue that Coven is telling a story about the history of femi-nism and contemporary issues within the broader feminist movements of North America, using witchcraft as an allegory in an attempt to tell a better story-one that pushes us to imagine a better future. This paper combines ethnographic content analysis and intersectional feminist analysis to engage with the television show American Horror Story: Coven (2013) to conduct a close textual reading of the show and unpack how the representations of a diversity of witches can be read and understood as representing a diversity of types of feminism. I argue that this season of a popular television series can be read as an allegory for contemporary issues within feminist theories and practices. Coven represents prominent issues within feminist dialogues such as the persistent white supremacy-particularly within academia-the political differences between generations, anti-feminist men's movements (so-called men's rights, the Red Pill, etc.), as well as the diverse subgroups of feminism represented by the diverse characters in the show (including critical disability and environmental femi-nisms). I argue identification with the characters and conflicts in Coven can encourage creative political mobilizations, concluding with a brief discussion on the enduring symbol of the witch and witchcraft for feminists. Popular culture texts, like American Horror Story: Coven, help contemporary white feminists be self-reflexive, imagine better stories, and hopefully practice better futures. Ethnographic content analysis as its primary method of analyzing AHS's Coven season. David Altheide, credited with creating this method, describes it in this way: "Ethnographic content analysis is used to document and understand the communication of meaning, as well as to verify theoretical relationships" (1987, 68). Ethnographic continent analysis thus varies from standard content analysis as it allows for a deeper engagement and understanding of the text, the symbols and meaning within the text, and theoretical relationships with other texts and socio-political realities. This method is particularly useful for allowing the researcher deep involvement with the text to develop a descriptive account of the complexities of the narrative (Ferrell et al. 2008, 189). In closely examining the text (Coven) to explore the themes and relationships depicted, ethnographic content analysis sheds light on how these elements of the show connect and represent real-life issues, and can be used as a starting point for imagining solutions to said issues. The methodology for this analysis consisted of watching Coven twice before reviewing it a third time and taking detailed notes on both content and recurring themes. Data was coded conceptually as was potentially relevant, for multiple purposes (Altheide 1987, 69). The notes were then coded by theme and combined into the following major theme groups discussed below: White Witches, Voodoo Queens, Witch-Hunters, and the Academy. Naomi Goldenberg, one of the seminal scholars of the feminist analysis of religion, names twelve factors 3 of the phenomenology of modern witchcraft in her book Changing of the Gods: Feminism & the End of Traditional Religions (1979, 111-114). These phenomena factors can be utilized in contemporary feminist theories and practices as they are in the Coven television show. The first factor of Goldenberg's phenomena of witchcraft is female deities. She argues that any religion that deifies a female principle is likely to be seen as primitive, blasphemous, and evil to scholars and clergy in a patriarchal society.

Cultural Media Studies Series

Roberta Chevrette

This book illuminates the rhetorical work performed by contemporary representations of a specific type of postfeminist hero who has garnered a lot of cultural capital: women who are smart, capable, physically agile and fit, and proficient with weaponry and technology. Employing critical/cultural and feminist approaches, Heather Hundley, Roberta Chevrette, and Hillary Jones engage with a range of theories including intersectionality, critical race theory, postmodernism, and posthumanism to examine a range of contemporary texts, including Kill Bill, Volumes I and II; The Hunger Games films; Wonder Woman; Atomic Blonde; Proud Mary; The Bionic Woman; Deus Ex; Dark Matter; and Caprica. Contributing to a robust existing conversation about postfeminist media as well as tracing how representation has changed in recent years, Hundley, Chevrette, and Jones contend that portrayals of dangerous dames offer limitations and opportunities for audiences. Specifically, should audiences read these characters as evidence of a postfeminist apocalypse, they may heed warnings of the limited interpretations offered. Yet as more women serve as role models and gain public attention, particularly regarding their assets and abilities, they provide important equipment for living for navigating around patriarchal constraints raised by postfeminism, neoliberalism, and humanism. Available at: -Peter Lang https://www.peterlang.com/document/1057643 -Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Dames-Representing-Female-Bodied-Postfeminist/dp/1433163012

Robyn A McCallum

Aeternum: The Journal Of Contemporary Gothic Studies

George R. R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones have achieved immense popularity in the last decade and increasing attention within the academy. Several scholars have examined how women are constructed in the series, many of whom argue that audiences, meanings, and conventions have profound effects upon how readers are invited to view and (re)imagine femininity and femaleness. However, female masculinities have been marginalised in these discussions, which have maintained a link between female bodies and femininity that feminist and queer scholars have problematised. Using Barbara Creed's work on the monstrous feminine, J. Halberstam's concept of female masculinity, and Raewyn Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity, I argue that certain masculine women are aligned with monstrosity, and that this embodiment of masculinity is used to critique violent and dominating masculine performances. Given the series' mass appeal and popular culture's role in shaping attitudes and values, the problematization of destructive masculinities has the potential to subvert currently accepted constructs of masculinity.

International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies

Linda Coates

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The Paramount Theater Performance “The Beauty and the Beast” Essay

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Introduction

Characterization, lighting effects, effect of costumes, reflections, works cited.

On 23th of October, I watched the show The Beauty and the Beast in the Paramount Theater in Seattle Downtown. It was written by Linda Woolverton in 1991. The play was directed by Rob Roth. The plot of The Beauty and the Beast revolves around Beast, who is transformed into an unsightly creature because of his cruelty and unkindness.

For him to become a human being again, he has to earn the love of someone before the rose dies. Otherwise, he will forever remain a beast (Swan 352). On the other hand, there is a beauty, a young woman named Belle, who had been imprisoned by Beast in exchange for her father’s freedom.

Ultimately, romance brews between the two youths and Beast rediscovers his humanity after they both fall in love. In this paper, I will critique the show and particularly discuss two specific production aspects, which are the lighting design and the costume design.

The way the main character approached his role was, in my opinion, very dramatic and convincing. Watching him, it was easy to suspend disbelief and be transported into the fictional world that he presented. His tone and gestures were very illustrative and compelling. He spoke aggressively and commanded the stage with an astute confidence. His change in appearance and attitude were made believable by virtue of the fact that he was capable of portraying radically divergent facades seemingly within moments.

Before he met Belle, his voice was harsh and hard. His gestures were wild and threatening, and he intimidated with his presence alone. However, after falling in love with her, he softened up considerably and gradually became more compassionate and humane. His previous performance, as a cruel person, was so convincing that when he used the word “please”, which people use on a day-to-day basis, it had a huge effect on the audience who had seen him as a cruel and heartless person.

The director of lighting in the play combined both aspects of motivated and unmotivated lighting. The second one can be defined as the use of light that does not come from an explicable source, and its main role is to create a theatrical or functional effect (Downs and Ramsey 212). An example of this at work is the scene where Beast was standing alone on stairs as he watched the rose wither.

The general mood was dark and there was only a single beam of light around him, indicating loneliness, sadness, and isolation. Furthermore, severally in the course of the play, there was a focus on the red rose. For example, after beast had been locked in the castle, the only visible light was directed on the rose, which posited to the audience that it was an important clue.

The light functions were in harmony within the play’s general theme and the concept behind the production. For the most part, the play was a comedy, which explains the mostly warm and colorful lights that have been used. This lighting theme was also underpinned by the fact that it was a commercial comedy, which was meant to attract and intrigue the audience. The Beauty and the Beast is fundamentally a play about love, forgiveness, willingness to change and readiness to accept people irrespective of their appearance.

Despite being cast as a comedy, it has very serious underpinnings that should not be ignored given the gravity of the thematic concerns (Swan 353). The intermission between dark and bright lighting, with the latter being more dominant, serves to champion a message of hope and goodness that triumphs over evil and unhappiness (Craig 12).

Therefore, the lighting was excellently suited for both the utilitarian and thematic concerns that emerge in the play. Although there were various scenes when darkness and minimal light were used, this was done to create a thematic effect and usually followed by lighter scenes to provide some relief from the serious and dark elements of the performance.

The light worked very well in harmony with other elements of design, including costumes and props. In the first scene when Belle was portrayed dancing with her neighbors, the stage was brightly and vividly lit, and the actors are in colorful costumes, which along with the light, lent a happy and exiting mood to it. In the final scene when the lovers were finally together, the lighting was warm, without being too bright and served to bring out the beauty of both actors by enhancing their makeup and costumes.

Belle’s costume came off as being unique and subtle at the same time, which helped to set her apart from the rest of the actors, especially the dancing girls. This was important because costumes played a critical role in differentiating actors, developing, and enhancing their given attributes. In the first scene, she was reading a book, and she dressed in a blue and white dress, while the rest of the girls were colorfully decked and dancing with the equally colorfully dressed youth.

Through these contrasts, Belle was juxtaposed from the rest of the characters as a simple individual with an elegant personality. Another character whose attributes were developed through costumes was her father. He was an inventor and the director opted to dress him in colorful and outlandish costumes.

He wore peculiar hats and funny-looking yellow socks. As soon as the audience watched him, there was laughter even before he said a word. Such characters are important for bringing out comic relief and, in this case, his unusual take on things as well as his dress made him stand out (Hartz and Hunt 302). He was not very different from Shakespeare’s Lancelot Gobbo, whose strange dress and comical nature were used to give the audience comic relief from the more serious scenes in the play.

The costumes were very effective in bringing out harmony in the play’s overall theme as well as the production concept since they were mostly colorful, which was in line with the plot’s comic and fairy tale overtones. As a commercial comedy, it had to be both brightly lit and presented so the audience could view the characters with the lightness that their roles bestowed on them (Hartz and Hunt 305).

The costumes were quite successful in connecting with other design elements, such as the light and sounds. Given that music is instrumental in every play, the dancing scenes, for example, would have looked misconstrued if they had girls wearing formal or dull clothes dancing to light comical music.

Furthermore, the light actively interacted with the costumes to create an aesthetic effect, such as when people in dinnerware were dancing in the castle while wearing golden costumes (Craig 11). The light at this time was very bright and the actors’ golden costumes blended with it, giving them a distinctive almost celestial appearance.

Like most people, I am familiar with the story of The Beauty and the Beast and I have, in fact, heard several versions of it. Some were in books and others were in films and previous plays. However, I noted that everyone does his or her rendition differently in an attempt to recreate the story. This case was not different. I honestly expected to get bored watching a story that I had read before.

Surprisingly, I found it quite captivating and even my endeavors to look at it through critical eyes did not distract me from the central storyline, which I still found refreshing. Retrospectively, I think that the director’s use of the various theatrical devices and techniques, such as lighting and costumes contributed a great deal to my sustained interest.

The play’s realistic set and even use of unmotivated lighting did not, at any point, appear to distract viewers from their suspended disbelief (Downs and Ramsey 78). Although I think that the director did not use enough motivate lighting, and I took issue with the over-juxtaposition of characters through costumes that made some fade in the presence of others, I feel that the play was, nevertheless, masterfully executed.

The Beauty and the Beast was particularly compelling to watch. The transformation that Beast undergoes credits his acting prowess and the casting directors. It appears that all people have chances to reform in their lives. In conclusion, I am of the opinion that the play successfully combined and utilized various elements of drama and renders an old story in a refreshing and convincing new way. It is one of best plays I have watched in the recent past.

Craig, E. On the Art of the Theatre . London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Downs, W., and Erik R. The Art of Theatre: Then and Now . Hoboken, NJ: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

Hartz, G., and Ralph H. “Humor: The beauty and the beast.” American Philosophical Quarterly 12.4 (1991): 299-309. Print.

Swan, S. “Gothic drama in Disney’s beauty and the beast: Subverting traditional romance by transcending the animal‐human paradox.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 16.3 (1999): 350-369. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2020, March 23). The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast". https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-paramount-theater-performance-the-beauty-and-the-beast/

"The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast"." IvyPanda , 23 Mar. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/the-paramount-theater-performance-the-beauty-and-the-beast/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast"'. 23 March.

IvyPanda . 2020. "The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast"." March 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-paramount-theater-performance-the-beauty-and-the-beast/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast"." March 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-paramount-theater-performance-the-beauty-and-the-beast/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Paramount Theater Performance "The Beauty and the Beast"." March 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-paramount-theater-performance-the-beauty-and-the-beast/.