48 pages • 1 hour read
Robin McKinleyBeauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
When Honour Huston was five, her father tried to explain the concept of honor to her. Disgusted, she declared she’d rather be Beauty, and has been called Beauty ever since. Now at age 12, she lives with her older sisters, Grace and Hope, and her father, Roderick Huston. Beauty’s mother died less than two years after her birth, followed two weeks later by the death of Beauty’s baby sister, Mercy. Though Beauty and her sisters were equally cute as children, Grace and Hope blossomed into beautiful young women while Beauty became plain. She sees herself as ugly and of limited worth, despite her cleverness. Her father doesn’t see Beauty as “less than,” however. He loves that his daughters have different qualities. Beauty’s sisters are kind and good-hearted. Society, however, doesn’t value cleverness, in Beauty’s opinion. Her governess remarks on her cleverness in an overtly pitying tone. Beauty loves books. She dreams of attending a university and becoming a scholar, something unheard of for a woman.
The Hustons are a wealthy family, thanks to their father’s booming business and his fleet of mercantile ships that visit the world’s major ports. At age 19, Beauty’s older sister Grace is engaged to marry their father’s most promising captain, Robert Tucker. Before they can marry, Robert, who goes by Robbie, undertakes a three-year voyage. Grace vows to wait for him. In the ensuing years, Hope falls in love with Gervain “Ger” Woodhouse, an ironworker in their father’s shipyard. Hope knows it isn’t the match their father would expect of her, and asks Beauty to talk to him on her behalf. Before Beauty has a chance, the family receives a message that Robbie’s ship and three others that traveled with it have been lost. Two were destroyed in a storm, another third taken by pirates. Robbie’s ship, the White Raven, is missing and presumed lost for good. Coming on the heels of many other such misfortunes befalling Roderick’s assets, this loss leaves his business in ruins.
While Grace mourns Robbie, Roderick discovers he’s now viewed as being jinxed, so no other merchants will work with him or hire him. Having no other marketable skills, he decides to sell what he has left and move his family to the country where they can live on much less. Gervain, who already wanted to move out of the city, tells Roderick he’s found a house in the countryside with a blacksmith’s forge and carpenter’s shed. He suggests the Hustons live there with him, at least until they can make their own way again. Roderick accepts the offer and the family begins making arrangements to move to a town called Blue Hill. The journey will take them two months. The house has four bedrooms, a significant adjustment compared to their current two-story home with its 18 rooms, a ballroom, kitchen, and servant’s quarters. Beauty and Hope recognize this change will be easier on them than on Grace and their father, and they try their best to be supportive.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Most of the Hustons’ belongings are auctioned off. However, they find their friends have filled their kitchen with goods they can use on their journey and in their new home: nonperishable foods, cloths of various fine materials—gingham, muslin, wool—leathers, fur capes, and a pet canary they eventually name Orpheus after the legendary musician of Greek mythology. The local stable owner, Tom Black, sells their horses for them. However, he gifts Beauty her favorite horse, Greatheart. Four years ago she’d helped Greatheart survive as a foal by bottle-feeding him and giving him daily attention. Now, Tom insists the horse won’t eat if she leaves without him.
Beauty’s family travels with a group of wagoners that make the northward journey twice every year. Most of the wagoners don’t pay the Hustons much attention, but one man named Tom Bradley is friendly. He helps them learn to get by while roughing it—sleeping on the ground, getting saddle sores, cooking over a fire—since their lives of luxury haven’t prepared them for such hardship.
After two months, they arrive in the one-street town of Blue Hill, where they meet Gervain’s aunt, Melinda Honeybourne. A widow with six children, Melinda runs the town’s public house, the Red Griffin. Melinda and her children have prepared the house for Gervain and the Hustons to move in, and offer a great deal of kindness and support as they get settled. And because Melinda likes the newcomers, the rest of the town is predisposed to like them too. The house is beyond the edge of town, and the great forest northwest of Blue Hill grows nearly to their back door. Beauty learns early on that nobody ever travels in that direction or passes through that forest.
Beauty and her sisters come to realize how spoiled they’ve been by having servants all their lives. They don’t know how to manage a home. They maintain positive attitudes, however, and they quickly grow in knowledge, strength, and skill. Grace and Hope take over the cooking and cleaning. Beauty ends up in charge of tasks deemed most suited to boys, like chopping firewood. It seems appropriate enough to her, since she’s “short and plain” and has “no figure to speak of” (38). Beauty also tends the garden so skillfully it provides a bounty of food for the family. A little over a year after their arrival, Hope marries Gervain in a joyful celebration shared by the townspeople. Love also seems to be budding between Melinda and Roderick, in Beauty’s opinion.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Gervain warns Beauty and her family to stay out of the forest. He tells Beauty it’s said to be enchanted, and that he suspects the nearby stream is too, since it flows out of the forest. According to lore, Ger explains, a castle in the center of the woods will draw to it anyone who enters the forest. A monster lives there, said to have once been a man but turned into a beast as punishment for evil deeds. Townspeople say the monster must have a mighty appetite because no wild animals have been seen in or near the forest for generations. Beauty promises Ger she’ll stay out of the forest, but makes no promises about the stream. The next day she and Greatheart drink from it, with no apparent effect.
Life in the countryside agrees with Beauty, as far as appearances go. Physical work has made her stronger and improved her posture. Time outdoors has left her skin clearer and brighter. She hasn’t grown taller as she’d hoped, but doesn’t have to worry about her looks much since the family’s only mirror is in Grace’s room. A young man from a town named Ferdy, who helps Gervain in the blacksmith shop, is a few years older than Beauty, who’s now 16. The two become friends, but Beauty doesn’t like it when Ferdy kisses her on Hope and Gervain’s wedding day. Afterward their friendship becomes strained.
Ten months after the wedding, Hope gives birth to twins—a girl they name Mercy for Hope’s deceased sister, and a boy they name Richard after Ger’s father. In late September, Roderick receives a message that one of his lost ships is returning to port in the city. The message doesn’t say whether it’s the ship Robbie was on. Their father must travel to the city to claim the ship. He embarks on the long journey a week later, with plans to return home the following spring. Roderick returns earlier than expected, on the heels of a sudden blizzard in late March. He arrives looking weak and exhausted, and carrying a giant rose. Beauty remembers the question he posed to his daughters before leaving. He asked what gifts he could bring back from the city for them. They joked about pearls and rubies, but really wanted only his safe return. However, Beauty did suggest rose seeds, so she could plant roses in their garden.
After Roderick breaks the news to Grace that the ship wasn’t Robbie’s, a petal falls off the rose and turns to solid gold. Roderick says he’s too tired to tell his family all he’s been through, but assures them he will the next day. Beauty dreams that night of a stream turning to liquid gold and a great red griffin flying overhead, its wings casting a shadow over their home.
Part 1 Analysis
Narrating Beauty through a first-person point of view allows the author to reveal the novel’s themes and messages through the protagonist’s changing perceptions. Beauty is portrayed as “ugly” for much of the book because she’s the one telling the story and that’s what she believes. McKinley’s use of many British spellings is another noteworthy stylistic choice, given that she’s an American writer. Examples include honourable, odours, storey, and humour. These spellings help develop the story’s setting, which is never specified. Many other terms used throughout the story similarly evoke a European—sometimes specifically a French—setting: La Belle et La Bete, or The Beauty and the Beast. Such terms include: banns—a term for a marriage announcement rooted in Old French; counterpane, meaning bedspread—an alteration of contrepointe in Old French; and trousseau, a bride’s personal possessions—a descendant of the French verb trousser, meaning “to truss up.”
Beauty’s story about how she earned her nickname at the age of five establishes the symbolic importance of names as a perceived representation of identity. The contrast between her nickname and her appearance bothers her. She feels she’s letting her family down by being called Beauty and then “being plain” (4). As for why Beauty isn’t fond of her given name either, she says: “It sounded sallow and angular to me, as if ‘honourable’ were the best that could be said of me” (4). To Beauty, names serve as descriptors of their owners and define a person’s traits and values. This symbolism shows that in her youth, Beauty is haunted by her own perceived lack of attractiveness and doesn’t yet give much thought to the importance of honor.
Chapter 1 establishes two main conflicts. One is an internal conflict, defined by Beauty’s self-perception of ugliness and lack of worth. Beauty reports faithfully that those around her don’t act as if she’s unattractive or less valuable than her beautiful sisters, but lacks insight into what this says about her perception. She thinks her father and sisters are just being kind. The townspeople in Blue Hill address her by the nickname “without the flicker of an eye” (38), yet Beauty doesn’t consider that she may not seem ugly or plain to them. Through the qualities Beauty does give herself credit for, like her cleverness, McKinley develops an external conflict between Beauty and society’s values and gender roles. Her dream is to attend a university and become a scholar, but in her society it’s “unheard of that a woman should do anything of the sort” (6). She gains strength in Blue Hill but says strength “is not considered an important virtue in a woman” (47). Through this conflict, a thematic look at How Fairy Tale Heroines Shape Their Own Destinies will emerge as Beauty challenges these values.
Though the Huston family is wealthy, their character development portrays them in a wholly favorable light. Their actions show they aren’t greedy or shallow, like when Roderick uses the last of his savings to “cushion the fall” for his employees and to try to find those lost at sea. When the contents of their household are auctioned off—their fancy vases, decorative tables, paintings, etc.—the family is positioned to convey one message or another about materialism, depending on how they transition from being “haves” to “have-nots.” The following days and months show them handling it with as much grace and optimism as could be hoped for. Hope and Beauty selflessly aim to ease the burden for their father and Grace. Beauty admits she’s frightened of the unknown they’re facing, but she has “never been afraid of hard work” and is “still young enough to see it in the light of an adventure” (18). Their positive attitudes demonstrate their appreciation for the privileges they’ve enjoyed until now, while still characterizing them as strong enough to succeed without that privilege, as long as they have each other.
Beauty and her family aren’t the only characters portrayed sympathetically. In fact, nobody in the world of the story plays the villain or reveals negative qualities. Everyone who Beauty comes into contact with displays kindness, generosity, and integrity. The Hustons are seen through their adversity by countless examples of kindness from others. Gervain offers them a home and a new start. Unnamed friends provide food and durable goods for their journey. Tom Black gives Beauty a horse, presenting it as a practical necessity to protect the family’s sense of honor. Tom Bradley helps them survive on the road, giving first aid and teaching them crucial skills. Melinda and her children make the Hustons feel welcome in Blue Hill, as well as working to make their house habitable. This approach to populating the world of the novel—filling it with only those who are good and kind, and have positive attitudes—makes for few obstacles or conflicts, and little tension. On the other hand, it cultivates a safe atmosphere where young readers can encounter positive messages about kindness and community.
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