Beauty and the Beast

In Chapter 4, Beauty worries that the Beast’s calm acceptance of her refusal may bring violence, which reflects women’s fears of the time. At the time, women were little more than the property of their husband, and many were married into undesirable circumstances with men who were much older or quick to anger. Beauty’s fears reflect the idea that calmness within a man meant his temper was boiling under the surface, preparing to come out in an explosion of violence. Compared to her concerns about the Beast, the prince in her dreams represents the ideal match. The prince is handsome, kind, and wants Beauty to have her freedom—a far cry from most women’s situations at the time.

Starting in Chapter 4, Beauty ties her happiness to her dreams as a way to escape her dislike of the Beast. When the Beast tells her that no one else is in the castle, she thinks this means that her prince isn’t reachable, which depresses her because she viewed him as an escape from her life. The dream in which the prince stabs the Beast suggests a few things. First, it prompts Beauty to realize her gratitude toward the Beast. Even though she chose to come to the castle only to save her father, the decision opened her mind to many things, including her nighttime lover and performances in the magic mirror. Without the Beast, she never would have found these things, and her gratitude shows the importance of every situation, even ones that feel negative. Beauty can dislike the Beast but still appreciate what he did for her, even though she never expected to benefit from him. In addition, the scene reveals the Beast’s inner conflict. He hates the curse and the appearance it forces upon him. He’s willing to destroy himself to keep from living his reality any longer, and only the hope Beauty brings keeps him from doing so.

In Chapter 5, Beauty doesn’t experience dreams of the prince while she’s at her family’s house, which shows how the magic works. Beauty may dream of the prince only while she’s in the castle, either because she’s near the prince or because the fairy’s magic can’t extend beyond the castle. Regardless of the reason, the lack of dreams foreshadows that Beauty and the prince belong together and will be together at the end of the book. When she asks to go home, the Beast is enraged, and the prince is sorrowful. Both display negative emotions about her leaving, and the difference shows how magic may be employed. By the terms of the curse, the Beast isn’t permitted to show the breadth of his intellect or emotions to Beauty. The prince within her dreams, however, is under no such obligation. The Beast’s anger keeps him distant, while the prince’s sorrow draws a similarly emotional reaction from Beauty, which suggests that dreams don’t need to follow the rules of reality. Alternatively, the original curse might have said nothing of dreams, and the helpful fairy simply exploited a loophole in the magic.

The dream sequences in these chapters offer support for the idea that dreams are messages. In the first third of the book, Beauty’s dreams of the prince were based in enjoyment and the notion of an ideal life. In the middle chapters, the story’s tension is rising, and Beauty’s dreams become a message, since she isn’t yet aware that the people within them are real. In Chapter 5, her father tells her that she must marry the Beast because his generosity is unmatched. Although Beauty fears that the Beast is simple, her father insists, because he knows Beauty will be well taken care of and provided for. Both the prince and the fairy in her dream echo these sentiments later in the chapter. Since their messages turn out to be true, the implication is that, whether a result of magic or not, dreams offer us wisdom. Dreams are free of the problems that bother people while they’re awake (for example, Beauty is free of the Beast during her dreams), and this means that dreams offer perspectives that people wouldn’t otherwise find. The prince and fairy represent this aspect of dreams.

The fireworks at the end of Chapter 5 mark the end of the curse and the beginning of the happily-ever-after sequence. Although tensions remain to work past in the final chapters, the narrative implies that they’ll be resolved because the Beast and Beauty have already been proclaimed husband and wife. In Chapter 6, the prince appears in Beauty’s room, though the Beast wasn’t there when she fell asleep. The prince might have been truly present only in her dreams and manifested in her room because that part of him was somehow tied to her. The arrival of the queen and the fairy foreshadows the explanation of events in the final chapters. The queen’s annoyance at the circumstances of Beauty’s birth indicates how marriage was considered a transaction at the time the story was published. Marriages were based on a woman’s dowry—her monetary value as a bride—rather than love. As a common-born girl, Beauty appears to bring nothing, which aggravates the queen because she wants to make an appropriate match for her son, even though their royal status means that they don’t need any riches Beauty might have.

In Chapter 6, the prince refuses to give up Beauty, which goes against conventional marriage wisdom of the time. Even though he’s of a high societal rank and doesn’t need a dowry, he should expect one as a prize for taking a wife. His refusal to denounce Beauty based on her parentage shows that he cares for her and may reflect the author’s own desire for herself and other women to marry for love rather than money. Beauty similarly shows her love for the prince by offering to release him from his marriage vows. She understands how society works and that she (a commoner) can’t expect to marry into royalty. At the time, young women had little to no say in who they married or whether the wedding would go through. Beauty exercising her ability to choose here shows the agency the author wished women to have.