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Beauty and the Beast with a Bettelheim Interpretation

“Beauty and the Beast” is a fairytale written by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, a French novelist. It’s a story loved by many because of the underlying message that is learned at the end of the story. It all starts with a dad and three sisters living in a wealthy home space together. They had always been a rich family and two of the sister would take advantage of that and only pay attention to the money. Beauty, the third sister, was the opposite of that and never just want material things. Although the family lived a lavish life, something happened that caused their family to lose all their fortune. They were forced to live in a smaller house and not have any maids or servants. A few years later, their father had thought of a way to potentially restore their wealth. To do this, he had to take a long journey. Beauty just wanted her dad to be safe on his way but the two other sisters just wanted him to buy them more things on his way back. Beauty finally told her dad what she wanted and it was a scarlet rose.

When the father was coming back from his trip he saw an empty castle and decides to stay there for a day. The next day, when he leaves he encounters a garden full of roses like Beauty wanted. The father goes to cut it off but he is stopped by the beast and he is angry and threatens him. 

This fairytale has many aspects that are discussed in Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. In this book, Bettelheim discusses the need for magic in a fairytale for children. In “Beauty and The Beast”, there is an animal and other inanimate objects that help Beauty go through development throughout the story. According to Bettelheim, “When, like the great philosophers, children are searching for the solutions to the first and last questions–’Who am I? How ought I to deal with life problems? What must I become?’–they do so on the basis of their animalistic thinking”(47). Beauty is going through a change when the Beast becomes part of her life. Before, she was just a girl trying to help her father and then when she met the Beast she began to realize things. Beauty realizes that beauty is not on the surface but, something that is multi-dimensional. She learns this and teaches the Beast to love himself. This is similar to what children go through and the element of magic is what helps the child understand that they will undergo a transformation as well. The child will begin to question many things about themselves and see if they see in the mirror is who they put themselves out to be (Bettelheim 47). All in all, with the magic in Beauty and the Beast the child reading this will understand the element of transformation with magic. 

Throughout the short story, Beauty goes through all the stages of psychosexual development. She goes through the Oedipus complex but in the female version which is called the Electra Complex. The Electra complex is when a female is sexually attached to their father figure, in competition with the mother(“Overview of the Electra Complex in Psychology”). Although Beauty did not have a mother, she still went through this phase in the story. Bettelheim says “A child not only dreams about marrying his parent of the other sex but actively spins fantasies around it”(39). Beauty was always around her dad and doesn’t want to leave his side ever. When her dad made the decision to give her up to the Beast it took a toll on her and had some trouble accepting the fact that she has to leave him. This complex is something that is crucial to the development of the character because she needs to start at this stage to then develop through the genital stage (38). Beauty will be able to face reality when she is forced into a relationship with the Beast and forget about her father in that way. 

           To conclude, with this analysis we can look deeper into how Beauty developed and what she had to go through to mature. Gong through the Electra Complex had shaped the character in the story and how she needed to get out of that immature mindset. The story helps children understand that they will undergo a transformation at one point in their life.

Works Cited

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. 

Thames & Hudson.1976. Print

Cherry, Kendra. “Overview of the Electra Complex in Psychology”. Verywell Mind. Verywell      Mind. 12 Aug, 2019.