Chad Froomkin

November 19, 1999

English 151

Amanda Warren

Madame le Prince de Beaumont’s Beauty and The Beast and Angela Carter’s From The Tiger’s Bride are two completely different versions of the story of Beauty and the Beast. They both have a beast, a girl, and the girl’s father, and in the end the girl ends up with the beast, but the similarities stop there. Carter’s version is very dark and depressing, while Beaumont’s version is happy and cheerful. Beaumont’s version was the basis for the Disney movie, because it appeals to little kids and has a fairy tale ending. Carter’s, on the other hand, is made for adults, and if it were made into a movie someone like David Lynch (Lost Highway) would probably direct it. The descriptions of the short stories are: one is a fairy tale, and one is a soft-core porno movie.

Family plays a role in both of the stories. Beauty has her father, three brothers, and two other sisters, who are greedy and hate her, while the girl in From The Tiger’s Bride only has her father. Beauty’s sisters play an important role in the story, because if it wasn’t for their arrogance, then Beauty may never have unmasked the Beast. The sisters also were used for a moral value, by being turned into statues and not being able to turn back into a human until they recognized their faults. The father figure, on the other hand, is very evident in both stories.

The fathers are as different as two people can get. Beaumont’s version of the father is loving, caring, and adores his daughter more than anything. Carter’s version is greedy, has a gambling problem, and only cares about himself. When the beast in Carter’s version decides to release the girl and give the father everything he has won from him, the girl notices that her father only cares about the reward and not of her well being. Because of this, she has to decide whether to go back to her father or to be with the beast. She chooses not to go back with her father and instead goes back to the beast, because she knows that her father does not truly love her. Beaumont’s Beast lets Beauty see her father, but if she does not come back in eight days then he will kill himself. Even though she does not want the Beast to die, she knows she truly won’t be happy until she sees her father. So she does return home and is greeted by her father who is grateful that she is alive. Beauty also has to make a decision on staying with her father or going back to the Beast. Beauty decides to go back to the Beast, even though she wants to be with her father, but at the same time, she realizes how caring and kind the Beast is and does not want him to die. The girl chooses her beast out of default, whereas Beauty chooses her beast because she loves him.

Another contrast between the two stories is the reasons why the beasts want the girls in the first place. Beauty’s beast wants to be kind and take care of Beauty so that she will marry him. He gives her a glorious place to stay, feeds her the best meals, and talks to her every night at nine o’clock so she won’t be lonely. Beauty recognizes the beauty in him, and realizes that, even though he is ugly on the outside that he is beautiful on the inside. The girl’s beast only wants one thing from her, and that is to see her without any of her clothes on. He represents every twelve-year old boy dreaming of catching a glimpse of their babysitter taking off their shirt. He doesn’t want to marry her, or have sex with her, he just wants a little peep show, and then she can be free. The way this beast goes about this is completely opposite of how Beauty’s beast does. Instead of talking with the girl and showing that he might actually care for her, he barely says anything and what he does say has to be interpreted by one of his servants. He also appears like a child and acts as if he is embarrassed by his wish to the point where he can’t stand to be around the girl. He makes the girl feel so uncomfortable that she never wants to get naked in front of him. That fact that she was a virgin and had never been naked in front of anyone before didn’t help. When the girl finally does decide to show herself to the beast, it is because the beast gets naked before her. The weirdness of this situation is very confusing, and does not make much sense. Beauty’s beast is hopeful that one day she will marry him, while the girl’s beast is bizarre and does nothing to make his desire of seeing her naked actually become a reality.

The endings to both of the stories are entirely different, but they also can be considered as similar. After Beauty had been gone for two days after the beast said he would kill himself, she realizes that even though he is hideous on the outside that she loves him for the person he is. When she goes back to the castle to save him she professes her love to him and agrees to marry him, and to her surprise he turns into to a handsome prince. It turned out that a witch put a spell on him and he couldn’t change back until someone agreed to marry him. The girl, in contrast, went back to the beast because she became conscious that her father did not really love her, and she also realized that her fear for the beast had been diminished. She tested her fear for him by coming face to face with the beast. While he had the chance to kill her, he noticed that she was acting different then she had before, like she was similar to him. He then proceeded to lick off her skin, and she turned into a tiger, a beast like him. Beauty experienced the Beast changing into a prince, and the girl experienced herself changing into a tiger. So in the aspect of changing into the person that one really is, the stories were similar.

Being written some two hundred plus years after Beauty and The Beast, From The Tiger’s Bride’s basic story line was obvious lifted from the original version. Angela Carter just decided to put a dark twist on this classic fairy tale. Even though they are completely different, that basis of the story is the same, yet the message is totally different. Beauty and The Beast was written as a fairy tale to be told to little kids. It is supposed to show that beauty lies on the inside of a person and not on the outside. From The Tiger’s Bride was written as a fiction work of the original, and made it so that the readers had to provide their own moral to the story.