The Real Fairytale Origins of the Beauty and the Beast Film

Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast has been hugely popular and highly lucrative for the House of Mouse. Most estimates put profits somewhere around $500 million dollars by the end of its second weekend, with the billion-dollar mark considered within easy reach. There are a number of factors contributing to its phenomenal success—the stars, the music, the popularity of the original animated classic from 1991…

But none of it would be possible without the story itself. Like many of Disney’s biggest financial and critical successes, Beauty and the Beast is based on a fairytale; how does this tale as old as time stack up against the original story?

First, a little background information. The fairytale originates with a full-length novel written by the French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740. La Belle et la Bête was quite popular, with plays and musicals based on its story debuting throughout the 18th century.

After Villeneuve’s death in 1755 the story was appropriated by and extensively rewritten by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, who gave it a moralistic angle and published it as a children’s story. Beaumont’s version has proven more popular, and it is with this text we will compare Disney’s live-action version.

The Real Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Family and Background

Film: Belle lives with her father Maurice in an idyllic French village. Having lost his wife to plague in Paris shortly after Belle’s birth, Maurice has eked out a life in the village for at least fifteen years by creating artwork and intricate little machines.

Original: Belle’s origins in Beaumont’s story are markedly different. For starters, there are no names in this tale, simply a “very rich merchant” and his youngest daughter, who has been nicknamed “the little Beauty” for years.

Beauty’s love of reading survives in the character of Emma Watson’s Belle.

The merchant has five other children—three sons who don’t get much of a role and two older daughters who jealously despise her for her kind and loving heart. The merchant’s wealth disappears without explanation, and he and his brood are forced to move to a small house deep in the countryside “and work for their living.”

The Real Beauty and the Beast: The Introduction of the Beast

Film: In a flashback we learn that an enchantress, caught outside during a terrible storm, asks an arrogant young prince for shelter. She offers him an enchanted rose in exchange, but he rudely refuses.

At this disrespect, the enchantress turns him into a hideous monster and his attendants into common household objects; they will remain in these forms forever if the prince cannot learn to love before the enchanted rose’s last petal falls.

Original: The beast is actually a handsome young prince who has been transformed by a fairy “until a beautiful virgin should…be won by the goodness of [his] temper” and agree to marry him. Beaumont gives no explanation as to what event triggers this transformation. The rose functions as a countdown timer in the film, but Beaumont’s story sets no timeline for the romance; Beast will remain in this form until he learns his lesson.

The Real Beauty and the Beast: The Stay at the Castle

Film: Belle asks Maurice to bring her back a rose on his trip to town. Wolves drive Maurice to a seemingly abandoned castle before being taken captive by a hideous monster. Belle’s discovery of Maurice’s captivity leads to her changing places with her father, much to the astonishment of the selfish and angry Beast.

The abandoned but obviously magical castle, with its air of magnificent decay and army of servants transformed into clocks and candelabras, intrigues Belle. She gradually forms a friendship with the beast, encouraged by the servants’ assurances that he is truly a good person under his ghoulish exterior.

Original: The merchant, thinking he has a chance to recover his family’s fortune, travels to town to investigate a long lost ship that might be his. Beauty’s older sisters thoughtlessly beg him to bring them expensive dresses, but Beauty asks for a simple rose.

While coming back from town (where he has discovered the ship is not his and his family’s poverty quite unchanged) the merchant is driven by wolves into the grounds of a mysterious “palace illuminated from top to bottom.”

Beast does not appear until the following morning, when the merchant attempts to pluck a rose from the castle’s gardens. Beast tells him, “I have saved your life by receiving you into my castle, and, in return, you steal my roses, which I value beyond any thing in the universe, but you shall die for it; I give you but a quarter of an hour to prepare yourself, and say your prayers.”

Beaumont gives us no physical description of Beast other than that he is so shockingly repulsive that Beauty thinks she will faint when she sees him for the first time. Upon finding out the merchant has daughters, Beast lets him live and leave with a chest full of treasure—“on condition that one of them come willingly, and suffer for you.”

The treasure is hard to hide from Beauty, who sacrifices her own happiness for her father’s (much to the delight of her awful older sisters) by going to Beast’s castle. Beauty is convinced that Beast intends to eat her, but is comforted by a dream in which a beautiful woman tells her, “I am content, Beauty, with your good will, this good action of yours in giving up your own life to save your father’s shall not go unrewarded.”

This is not the last we will hear from this cryptic figure. The castle itself enchants Beauty—it is “a delightful pleasant place” with a richly decorated apartment specifically for her use (her name is written over the door), a library with books inscribed to her, and music playing constantly. Beauty never figures out who or what does these things.

The Real Beauty and the Beast: The Romance

Film: Belle settles into life at the castle. Serenaded by the servants, Belle and the beast realize that they are falling in love. Gaston, an arrogant and brutish captain in the French Army, threatens their growing romance. Wanting Belle for his own wife, Gaston and his cowardly sidekick LeFou connive to have Maurice thrown into an insane asylum and whip the village into a furor over this beast who has stolen Belle’s heart. Gaston leads the mob to the castle, where a pitched battle between the townsfolk and servants ensues.

Original: Beast and Beauty develop a deep friendship over the course of three months, marred only by Beast’s nightly ritual of asking Beauty to marry him. Disturbed by this, Beauty tells him, “I wish I could consent to marry you, but I am too sincere to make you believe that will ever happen; I shall always esteem you as a friend.”

Desperate to check on her father, whom she fears is wasting away with worry over her safety, Beauty is allowed to leave the castle by Beast. He gives her a magic ring that can transport her immediately back to the castle and makes her promise to return in a week. Upon arriving at home, the merchant and her brothers are overjoyed to see Beauty.

The Real Beauty and the Beast: The Resolution

Film: With the servants fighting the townspeople in the castle below, Gaston and the beast square off on the roofs of the castle. Gaston is overpowered by the beast’s strength and begs the beast to spare him. He then draws a pistol and shoots him multiple times before falling to his death.

Belle, distraught over the beast’s impending death, declares her love for him. This occurs just as the last petal of the enchanted rose falls, saving the beast and the castle’s inhabitants from being stuck in their transformed states forever. Belle and the prince are in love, the servants are reunited with their loved ones, and everybody lives happily ever after.

Original: Beauty’s sisters are quite jealous of her obvious happiness and fine clothes, and conspire to keep her at home longer than a week in the hope that Beast will become so angry that he will eat Beauty. This plot backfires, for Beauty dreams that Beast is dying of heartbreak in the rose gardens and uses the ring to go to him.

Finding him lying in the foretold garden, Beauty realizes that her grief over his death is proof that she really does love him. There is no romantic kiss for the happy couple in Beaumont’s story—Beast simply transforms into “one of the loveliest princes that eye ever beheld” and explains to the uncomprehending Beauty his previous predicament.

This handsome prince escorts Beauty into his palace, where she finds her entire family and the fairy waiting for them. The fairy tells Beauty, “You have preferred virtue before either wit or beauty, and deserve to find a person in whom all these qualifications are united. You are going to be a great queen. I hope the throne will not lessen your virtue, or make you forget yourself.”

She then turns Beauty’s two older sisters into living statues that will decorate the front gates of her castle. “Immediately the fairy gave a stroke with her wand, and in a moment all that were in the hall were transported into the prince’s dominions. His subjects received him with joy. He married Beauty, and lived with her many years, and their happiness—as it was founded on virtue—was complete.”

The complete absence of familiar characters (Gaston, LeFou, Cogsworth, Lumière, etc.) is the most obvious difference between Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and the original fairytale, but there are many more waiting to be discovered. Check out the original text and let us know what you find.