Summary | Tale | Similarities | Analysis |
Summary of Beauty and the Beast : A poor merchant takes shelter in a magical castle one night during a storm. In the morning as he is leaving he spots a rose garden and thinks to pluck a rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. When he does so a monsterous beast appears and threatens his life, allowing the merchant to leave unharmed only after the merchant promises to send the youngest daughter to the beast instead. He does so, and while she is at first terrified of the creature she soon learns he is kind and gentle. Every night, however, the beast asks her to marry him and every night she says no. Although she is not supposed to leave the castle, the beast gives her permission to do so when she learns her father is dying, under the condition that she return within a specified amount of time. She stays away longer, and when she returns she finds the beast collapsed and apparantly dead. She then weeps and says she loves him, at which point he comes back to life and is transformed into a prince, who had been under enchantment until someone should love him despite his appearance.
Once upon a time poor merchant lived in a small home with his three daughters, their mother having past away some years before. The two oldest daughters were spiteful and spoiled, and made the youngest girl act as a servant to the family. She was the father's favorite though, and the name her sisters called her to mock her work-roughed hands and dirtied face was one he said with love. They called her Beauty.
One year, the Merchant was preparing to set off on a trip with the caravans to town to sell his wares, and asked his daughters what they most wanted as souvenirs from the town. The two oldest asked for fancy dresses and perfumes, but Beauty could name nothing. When her father pressed her for an answer, she asked if he might find her a single rose, and with that request he departed.
It was a long time before he returned, and the winter storms had started before his daughters, who had by this time grown concerned, heard his cart returning one night. They rushed out to find their father all but collapsed, and as threadbare as he had departed. They brought him inside, where he told his tale.
He had traveled to the town but the market was poor, and was unable to acquire any of the goods he had hoped would help them through the winter. He stayed later than he had planned in hopes of recouping his losses, and finally began the journey home alone, all but emptyhanded. He turned for home again as the air grew colder, knowing there would be little profit. He feared he would not make it home before the snow when he saw what appeared to be a path leading through the woods. Now these woods were dark and unfamiliar, and the villagers had warned the family to avoid them, but he feared the winter weather and turned his cart to the path.
In a short time he became lost, and feared he would die, but instead found himself at the gate of a splendid castle. He entered, and inside the storm winds were silent, but the courtyard was empty. He found a lit corridor leading to a large hall with a feast laid out. He called out to find his host, but as none appeared and his hunger was great, he ate. After eating he found his way to a splendid bed chamber and had a wonderful sleep, and then rose in the morning and prepared to depart.
As he passed through the grounds again he spied a garden rich with flowers. Hoping to at least procure a gift for his youngest daughter, he plucked a single red rose. A great roaring ensued, and a beast unlike anything he had seen rose before him, demanding to know why he had stolen from the garden after the hospitality he had been offered. The Beast said the merchant would pay for his crime with his life.
The merchant trembled in fear and begged for mercy, saying he had three daughters at home who would surely starve without him, and the rose had been meant as a gift. The Beast relented and said that the merchant might live if he sent the youngest daughter to the castle in his stead to keep the Beast company. The merchant, terrified, agreed and then fled the castle.
His daughters were horrified, but Beauty agreed to the conditions. A few days later the merchant and his youngest daughter took the cart to the castle and left Beauty at the gate.
She entered the castle, and like her father found it to be pleasant but silent inside. Also as with her father, she found a feast laid out in the main hall, but she was too frightened to eat. She sat at a chair and a moment later the Beast appeared.
He was terrifying in appearance, but polite. He greeted her as a guest, and informed her that all of the castle, from garden to library, was at her disposal, so long as she did not try to leave and allowed him to join her for meals. She thanked him and hurried off, but before she could flee the chamber he said "Beauty, will you marry me?". In horror she said she could never marry such a beast, and ran out of the chamber.
The same events occurred every day. She would spend her mornings reading or gardening or sewing, and sometimes the Beast would sit with her like a great hound at her feet, or quietly nearby watching her, and sometimes she was alone for all of the day. As time went on she learned that despite his fearsome appearance he was always calm and polite, and her fear decreased. Every night at dinner however, they ate and talked, and he asked her to marry him before she went to bed, and every night she said no.
One day Beauty begged to know what had become of her family. The Beast brought out a mirror and bade her to look into it. Doing so she saw her father lying in bed with her sisters around him, and he was clearly dying. Beauty begged the Beast to allow her to return to her father before he died. He gave her permission so long as she agreed to return within seven days time. Agreeing, she departed for her home.
Her family was surprised to see her again, but was glad of her help. In a few days her father was feeling better, but her sisters has schemed together to hold her back from returning to the castle. They were jealous of her tales of food and luxuries, and hoped that if she did not return one of them might take her place. When seven days was up, they begged and cajoled her into staying.
On the eighth night she dreamt that she walked the halls of the castle again but that it had grown dark and cold. She heard the Beast's voice saying "You forgot your promise, Beauty.". Waking, she remembered the Beast and rushed back to the castle in a gathering storm. She found the castle as she had dreamt it, and the Beast nowhere to be found.
Finally she found him in the garden, collapsed and still. She cried over his body, pleading for him to get up as she loved him and did not want him to die.
The beast stirred, and let out one large breath that sent the rose petals spinning around him. When they settled, he was gone but a handsome young man stood in his place. Beauty asked him who he was, and a familiar voice answered, saying that he had been the Beast, once a prince, who had been cursed to live as an animal until a maiden should love him despite his appearance. He asked if she would still marry him in his human form, and she agreed for she truly loved him, and they lived happily ever after.
: As strong as the similarities are, there are clearly a few outstanding differences between the two. Beauty and the beast occurs over a longer span of time than Tam Lin, and the two main characters have more interaction upon which to build a relationship. There is no one in Beauty and the Beast akin to the Queen of faeries to directly oppose the 'saving' of the Beast, nor is the Beast presumed to have been in danger before the appearance of Beauty's father. Furthermore, Janet defies her family while Beauty actively seeks their company and welfare, so that Beauty and the Beast becomes a tale more concerned with returning a lost individual than saving someone in immenant peril.
I find that many implications arise from this comparison. Tam Lin and Beauty and the Beast most likely arise from a common ancestor story of some form. Similar stories exist in many cultures, such as Cupid and Psyche as well as Persephone and Hades in Greek myth, although these examples clearly have more in common with Beauty and the Beast. Both stories can be interpreted to represent the place of marriage in a community from the viewpoint of the female; being forced to chose between her parents and a strange male, an uncertain future, learning to live with a frightening and strange creature who can by devotion and a good deal of work become a human being. The woods or the castle in either story can be seen as the mysterious world of adulthood, or sexuality.
One of the other thoughts that struck me when I began comparing the story was the relative 'cleanness' of Beauty and the Beast compared with Tam Lin. Janet, in Tam Lin, sleeps with (or is ravished by) a virtual stranger, argues with her parents, and disobeys social customs. Since Beauty and the Beast was recorded during a time period when it was considered proper to clean up faerie tales to make them moral tales for children, Tam Lin may have retained some of the less morally clear aspects that have been removed from Beauty and the Beast. It is my conclusion that Beauty was not originally as chaste as she is in modern tales. In other similar tales, such as Cupid and Psyche, the female is the lover of her male capture. Janet was probably only able to rescue her Tam Lin because she was carrying his child, Psyche was only returned to her Cupid after completing arduous tasks, Beauty cannot have gotten off so easily as her heroic sisters. What was doubtlessly a tale to tell during long winters for the entertainment and education of adults and near adults has become a story for children.
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