Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast

The enchantment over Beast and his castle, which can only be broken by a maiden loving him in spite of his ugliness, is the central premise in Beauty. It represents a universal conflict between pretense and truth, distilled into the fairy tale example of outward appearance versus inner beauty. In McKinley’s version of the tale, both Beast and Beauty demonstrate discordance between physical appearance and inner character. Beauty’s perceptions of Beast and of herself, influenced by society, fear, her family, and her own indomitable courage, represent the subjective nature of beauty. To find happiness and love, she must confront these influences and learn to see beyond fear, beyond beastly bodies, and beyond her critical self-image.

Beauty’s descriptions of her sisters in Chapter 1 establish physical beauty as a central concept and emphasize society’s role in defining beauty. When Beauty says of her acne, “[t]here hadn’t been a spot in our mother’s family for centuries” (4), she reveals how physical attractiveness can be a source of family pride and legacy. Yet society doesn’t seem to place the same value on other traits, like intelligence. Beauty’s governesses remark on her cleverness “in a pitying tone of voice” (5). This teaches Beauty to devalue her intellectual passion and curiosity and to measure a person’s worth by physical attractiveness. In comparison to her sisters, Beauty feels plain, even ugly, and therefore of “limited worth” (5). Her poor self-image represents the flaw Beauty must overcome in the course of her character arc.

When Beauty first meets Beast, he says she couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d let her father go alone to what they thought was his death, nor could she have let him do so in the first place. When Beauty questions how he knows this, Beast says, “I can see you” (115). He doesn’t mean he can see her physical appearance, but her character. He sees that she’s too honorable and selfless to let her father be harmed. By phrasing it this way, Beast introduces the idea of “seeing” inner qualities as well as outer appearances, thus prompting consideration of which is pretense and which is truth. Beast’s perception of Beauty also challenges conventional definitions of beauty, which are based on arbitrary standards of physical attractiveness. He asks, “since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?” (130). If slim waists and short noses are beautiful to some, then integrity and intelligence can be just as beautiful to others.

Beauty’s perception of Beast is even more important in developing the novel’s message about outward appearance and inner beauty. In Beast’s enchanted form, he knows people see him as a monster. He assures Beauty’s father no harm will come to her, yet he understands her fear because he understands how Roderick sees him: “I am a Beast, and a Beast has no honour” (116). When Beast first encounters Roderick, he adopts a fearsome and cruel demeanor in a desperate attempt to bring a maiden to the castle who might break the spell. Apart from that, he’s characterized as kind, gentle, and respectful from the beginning. This story, unlike other versions of the fairy tale, is not about him transforming. It’s about Beauty’s ability to see these qualities and to realize that they matter more than his appearance. His beastly form, which represents falseness and pretense, induces fear. Beauty must display courage in the face of her fear to get to know who Beast really is; to see the truth beneath the facade. When she finally conquers her fear, Beauty obtains “a new clarity of perception” (175). She can hear things in the castle that once were silent and see colors that had been invisible. She later describes it as when she “began to learn to see” (244). Her eyes could distinguish visual images all her life, but now she’s learned to “see” in a different way; to look below the surface, to see truth and inner beauty.

When Beauty learns to see the goodness of Beast’s character, she comes to love him. Even before she’s consciously aware of this love, it changes her. She grows taller; her once mousy hair turns coppery red; her eyes go from “muddy hazel” to “clear and amber, with flecks of green” (242). Her newfound physical beauty is a manifestation of her transformed sense of self-worth and of her sincere love for Beast. Some say you must love yourself before you can love another. This resolution suggests, instead, that loving others helps you learn to love yourself by instilling a new kind of sight; one that looks past outward appearances to find inner beauty.