Questioning Beast's Transformation

Book illustration by John Batten

Of the three main fairy tales referred to in Something In Nothing Beauty and the Beast is the most familiar and popular. This is partly due to two films by Disney, but also because it appears in many fairy tale books. As the Wikipedia entry for the tale shows there are and were dozens of variations on the Beauty and the Beast story across many countries and indeed continents. In classical literature there is the story of Cupid and Psyche for example.

At its heart it is the story of an enchanted man who is turned into a beast and is transformed back by the love of a woman to live happily ever after, as is the way of fairytales. Of course “happy ever after” is not true in real life, however much romance novels and films want us to believe otherwise.

Romantic fiction believes in transformation, that a woman can change her man. It can be a dangerous belief in all sorts of ways – not least for those women who marry unsuitable men believing they can change their husbands.

Is Beast’s transformation something to be desired? One of the messages of the story is surely that someone who appears monstrous can be good and deserving of love. It is a story about loving the Other. Beauty loves Beast as he is – a beast, so why does he have to change? In Something In Nothing he hasn’t. They have married and remained a woman and a beast.