Beauty and the Beast: About the Beast

For my last blog post about the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale I wanted to discuss the Beast (or Severin as he is called in my version of the story).

In my previous post I discussed the different ways the Beast was cursed, and how I combined the stories to give homage to Villeneuve and Beaumont–the original writers of Beauty and the Beast. Lots of stories follow the general layout of Villeneuve and Beaumont’s tale. However, the one thing that varies from story to story is Beast’s exterior.

Why?

That’s because Villeneuve and Beaumont are pretty abstract in their descriptions of the Beast. In fact they use no concrete adjectives to describe him at all. He is reported to be beastly, ugly, horrid, etc. You can tell by Beauty’s reaction (and by her father’s) that the Beast is excessively hideous and frighting because it is described how she shakes in terror and almost faints. (As a side note it is worth noting that Beauty is also described abstractly as well. It is only said that she is beautiful, there are no specifics given to her looks, including her hair color.)

Chances are the storytellers were vague because it allowed their audience to use their imagination, and decide for themselves exactly what made Beauty beautiful and why Beast was so frightening.

This is one of the more widely recognized illustrations of Beauty and the Beast by Walter Crane.

Looking at older illustrated versions of the story, most illustrators went with a clothed creature who walked upright on hind legs. Most commonly the beast resembles: a boar, a lion, a goblin, a bear, or a wolf. Typically the beast wears nice clothes–the original Brothers Grimm version of the story mentions that the beast wears splendid clothes which might have started the fad–but beyond that the beast’s looks vary.

So why did I go with a beast who greatly resembles a black jaguar in my retelling? For starters I wanted something that would be frightening and exotic to the people of Loire. Loire’s climate and ecosystem isn’t made for large cats. Wolves and bears yes, but jaguars? No. A black bear they would be familiar with, but a large cat they wouldn’t be, making Severin that much more frightening.

Additionally, my reasons for picking a cat as a beast goes deeper than Loire’s geography. Before I even had Elle and Severin designed, long ago I decided if I did a retelling of Beauty and the Beast I wanted my beast to look like a cat. Large cats are a beautiful example of savage beauty. I didn’t want the beast to look repulsive, I wanted him to give off the feeling that he could rip a person’s throat out. He needed to be potentially dangers, but why? Because ugliness typically doesn’t make people swoon and tremble like Beauty did in the original story. (If you don’t get what I mean go to a zoo and sit by the tiger exhibit. Then picture yourself inside the cage with the tiger as you observe the tiger’s pretty teeth.)

In my book, Severin’s dangerous exterior highlighted the requirement that Elle would need to trust him in order to love him. As a pathological liar, trusting Severin with her life was a revelation. And, yes, I will admit it. I also made Severin a cat because then Elle could make an abundance of cat related inquiries and jokes!

If you'd like to read Severian + Elle's story, here are the links for you:

Click here for Amazon.com  Or Click here for all other Amazon stores

Beauty and the Beast: Behind the Story

When I researched the origins of Beauty and the Beast for my book I found a lot of fairy tale commentaries. I know everyone is aware that the main theme of B&B is “Don’t judge a person by their appearance,” but a lot of analysts take it deeper. I thought it might be fun to discuss some of the different opinions about the original fairy tale. (This information is about the traditional story, not my retelling–although it’s similar enough some of the comparisons can still be made.)

Some people think the original versions (Written by Villeneuve and Beaumont, as you might recall from this other blog post.) are actually a social commentary because the stories start in urban settings with Belle and her merchant father. Additionally Belle’s standing in the social ladder (She isn’t a princess like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, nor is she a lord’s daughter like Cinderella) shows a significant change in society’s social structure. The servants play key roles in the fairy tale when typically they are ignored or painted as background characters in other stories.

Others say the moral of the story actually lies with the Beast–and not just the obvious lesson that one should not be an odious brat to the elderly. The claim is that the secondary lesson of the story is men should not force themselves on women and should instead wait patiently and do their best to woo them, giving the girls the choice to say “yes” or “no” to marriage.

It has also been proposed that Beauty and the Beast is like most of the female/princess fairy tales (like Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) and is about a girl’s journey to adulthood. When the tale opens Belle’s father is the most important person to her. When the Beast holds him prisoner Belle chooses to sacrifice herself on her father’s behalf. When she tells the Beast she loves him she has made a choice that he is now her most important person–signaling her exit of childhood and entrance to adulthood as she leaves her parents and desire to remain in her childhood home behind.

A rather cynical critic noted that poor Belle gets shuffled between “greedy and needy” males (greedy and needy in that Belle’s father gets sick because he is parted from her for a number of months and the Beast almost dies because she’s gone over a week.) and the real moral of the story is that men are greedy pigs. As humorous as this claim is, I don’t think it’s quite on target–although I will admit the Beast's whole “dying because she’s gone” thing is a bit melodramatic.

If you want a good laugh read Overthinking it’s satire entry on Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. It is hysterical, citing Gaston as a conservationist and Belle as a schizophrenic. The author even notes that Gaston’s march against the beast’s castle was clearly a village intervention.

If you're now interested in reading my adaptation of this fairy tale here are the links for you:

Click here for Amazon.com  Or Click here for all other Amazon stores

Writing Tips: Picturing Places

For those of you who didn’t know, Myrrhlynn was able to get the final cover of Beauty and the Beast to me earlier this weekend, and here it is!

Myrrhlynn (pronounced like Merlin) is my cover artist who is a regular wizard with Photoshop. (Hence the nickname.) I apologize to those of you who suffered through viewing the previous place holder covers I whipped up. Myrrhlynn did another great job with this cover, I’m so glad she reads my books before I release them because she makes the images very meaningful. This cover depicts Elle in a dark cloak (Which is very fitting, as those who have finished the book will agree with me.) in a snowy forest. Chanceux Chateau–Aka the beast’s castle–is in the middle of a woods, making the setting in the cover perfect. Myrrhlynn chose to use a winter scene because about half to a third of the book takes place in winter. Snow is something of a plot device in certain parts of the story.

Keeping Myrrhlynn’s reasoning for the cover design in mind, today I thought I would reveal a bit of my writing/inspiration process. When I’m writing a story I try to get clear pictures in my head to make the places and characters feel more real. For Life Reader I mapped out the library building design and had a folder on my computer that had dozens of photos from incredible libraries. For King Arthur and Her Knights I viewed A LOT of armor photos, and looked at A LOT of castle blueprints. For beauty and the beast I collected a lot of different garden photos/art images–Each part of the gardens (like the rose garden, the walking hedge area, and the fountain in the flower garden) were inspired by different images. The same goes for the Chateau. I originally planned for Severin to have a castle, but as I looked for images and photos of french castles I learned more about chateaus and decided that was a more appropriate setting. I even collected photos of papillons, mirrors, and roses.

My point is that the pre-writing footwork isn’t just research, it’s also imagining. Granted I changed a lot as I went because I needed to mold the scenery for the sake of the story, but if I ever got stuck or bored I went back through and looked at my pictures for inspiration.

Thanks for reading Champions, and an extra big thank you to Myrrhlynn for another spectacular cover!