Beauty and the Beast by Mme Le Prince De Beaumont :: essays research papers

Beauty and the Beast by Mme Le Prince De Beaumont The fairy tale Beauty and the Beast opens with the characters of a rich merchant and his six children, three boys and three girls. "The two eldest girls were vain of their wealth and position" (22), but the youngest girl, the prettiest of the three, had a more pleasing personality, humble and considerate. This youngest daughter was so beautiful even as a child that everyone called her Little Beauty. She was just as lovely as she grew up so that she was never called by any other name, a fact that made her sisters extremely jealous. All three girls had numerous marriage proposals - the two eldest always turned their suitors away with the declaration that they had no intentions of marrying anyone less than a duke or an earl. Beauty too always turned her proposals down, but with kindness, answering that she thought herself too young and would rather live some years longer with her father. "Then through some unlucky accident the father lost all of his fortune and had nothing left but a small cottage in the country"(22). When the father told his children that they would all leave town and move to the country cottage the two eldest daughters replied that they would not leave and go with him. They thought they had plenty of gentlemen who would marry them but soon found out that the men they had turned down so harshly now had no pity for them. On the other hand, many still had feelings for Beauty and several men offered to marry her yet she still refused, stating she could not think of leaving her father along in his troubles. At first Beauty would sometimes cry in secret over their misfortune, but in a very short time she decided, "All the crying in the world will do me no good, so I will try to be happy without a fortune" (22). After settling into their cottage, the merchant and his three sons began plowing and sowing the fields and working in a garden. Beauty did her part to help out; rising at four o'clock every morning to light the fires, clean the house, and fix breakfast for her family. When all her work was done, Beauty would amuse herself reading, playing her music, or singing while she spun. The two eldest girls, however, did not know what to do with their time; each day they had breakfast in bed, not rising until ten o'clock, and then they spent their days pitying themselves and grieving for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes.