While before The Little Mermaid is an example of "Be careful what you wish for", this story, one of my favorite stories of this subject, is the perfect example of "Do not judge a book by its cover." The "Beauty and the Beast" with the oldest version written by Gianfrancesco Straparalo way back in the 1550s. I personally love the movie of Disney's version because their love story is just to great and really inspiring, talk about those cheesy moments in the castle. I've always admired the strong character of Belle and how she managed to handle a short-tempered, and not to mention a hideous looking beast under her wings. Tough one of a girl she is.
Since this story's history is not much familiar to us because most of us knew only the one we saw in the movies, (which is probably still Disney) I decided to trace its roots to back mythology.
As always, research never fails me. I saw an article entitled "Beauty and the Beast" from the site WillOfTheWisp1.Webs.com written under the username of Abby's Lair.
The article tells about the different evolutions of the story Beauty and the Beast whereas the first origin is tracked down from the love story of Psyche and Eros; their love story filled with hindrance. Next is the vague love of the couple Hades and Persephone; the two not-so-happy couple. The story went on to Europe where it was first included in an anthology by Starapalo; but the famous version we know today is from Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne. It is now the story of the merchant agreeing to pay for his intrusion in the Beast's property with his daughter; the one also with Disney.
As time goes by version's of the story came made up to the famous "Phantom of the Opera", where the story of Erik, a man with a body of corpse falls in love with Christine that leads to a disaster. And another Beauty-and-the-Beast-like version, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with a hunchback named Quasimodo loved by a gypsy Esmeralda despite the odds that he was deaf and an orphan.
The article said, "As time goes on, the misfit Beast often becomes more understood, more pitied by the heroine, herself taking a more proactive role in the story, choosing her role rather than being forced into it by her father. A fairytale must reflect the society that tells it, and judging by the telling of Beauty and the Beast, society seems to be changing for the better."
As a bit of a fan of this story, I agreed to everything the article said as quoted above. From the first origin to the latest connection, it clearly it shows it has the most different approach of fairy tale stories made so far. Belle, and the other female characters that symbolizes Beauty, had this certain characteristic of a strong-willed woman that makes it even more unique. In here, it's not the man who only fights for the love but its the female role that played a big part. It is from the woman that the story completed its circle and giving it a happy ending. Cheers to girl power!
Such happiness as I've read the past article, but the next sort of crashed my beautiful painted image of the story Beauty and the Beast.
It's an article named "Beauty and the Beast’s Dark Delusion" written by Peter Gross from the site OverthinkingIt.com.
The article, well, quite shocked me to some revelations. It stated the Belle's story is a bit of a psychological drama, she being schizophrenic with hallucinations. Also, her having Stockholm Syndrome; a psychological phenomenon that hostages develop sympathy and positive feelings to their captors, which is considered irrational since it is an open risk captors are engaging at. It also stated that the "enchantress" actually Belle's super-ego (meaning conscience) telling her the high moral cost of having the high standard lifestyle of aristocracy. For Belle to survive between the wealth distributions, she would need to "stop viewing people as human beings", see them as objects as the movie of Disney interpreted in the household.
As if it's not shocking enough, the view on Gaston as the villain in the movie seemed misinterpreted. It stated that Gaston is actually concerned about Belle's seemingly weird being and that he was actually trying to help her, because he thinks that Belle is on her way to a tragic outcome because of her own beliefs. He was trying to convince her to be one with the villagers, to find her function but since it was contrary to Belle's imagined aristocrats with nothing common with the working class, she refuses. Having two options in order for her to function in the society, since she only shows interest in reading but not of science and maths and not writing on her own, she falls to only marriage and prostitution. In the near end of the movie, Gaston was asking her to marriage and it was misinterpreted for selfish reasons because he was actually helping her from falling to tragedy.
Since we sort of "thought" Belle as a tough woman, it became hard for Gaston to convince her and ended up rallying the villagers to kill the Beast, trying to stop Belle from her so-called delusions.
(So much information that I can't explain all of them. So if anyone's interested, click the link to the article above.)
A neck-breaking info I found there. It gets a little complicated at times because the article was really particular on the details. And now my impression of the perfect story just crashed. Belle as schizophrenic? Who would've thought about that! But in a way, I found it a bit true since she really is against all odds in the movie. And it scared me of how true these observations could have been. I hope they're not, but I feel that they are.
I might say the most sweating research so far. This is my favorite. Honestly. I never thought I would found such heavy infos because I never searched about this before. Well I guess there'll be a lot more. Got a little heartbroken though.
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