Brooke Banahan

Professor Freeman

ENG.2086

10/11/21

The Wilting Rose: Gender Norms in “Beauty and the Beast” Fairytales

The Beauty and the Beast tale serves as a crucial framework fairytale, one that has

pervaded the years as a classic. A beautiful peasant-turned-princess meets a prince in the form of

a beast and must learn to love him not for his appearance, but for what is inside. It is a perfect

tale to teach morality, not to judge a book by its cover, but it certainly has its flaws too. The

original tale, written by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont, is the one that is most familiar, the

one that was adapted (loosely) into the Disney movie still popular to this day.

Maybe the tale is a product of its time, but it certainly pushes a heteronormative

narrative, with explicit gender norms for each character. These gender norms translate to what

the men and women of that time should have acted like: women should be submissive, barely

seen or heard, and domestically gifted, whereas men were expected to be the providers, the

strong alpha types but also gentlemanly and polite. The theorists Karen Rowe and Susan Bordo

back this argument up with their consecutive works, arguing that such fairytales in the Beauty

and the Beast subject push a very stereotypical view on gender that is most often not even

feasible to meet. Not only does Beaumont’s tale fall into this view, The Grimm Brother’s tale of

The Frog Prince also faces the same scrutiny, wherein the young female character is forced to

house a hideous frog prince in return for him getting her toy back. Consent is thus thrown away

in this tale, as women should be motherly towards all things, The Grimms argue. It is important
to note these ideas that are present in these tales, and to look at them with a sharp lens, to know

that while they are fictional, they still push a narrative onto their impressionable readers.

Beaumont’s tale, on closer read, does seem to raise a few red flags in the characterization

of Beauty, the main female character. Firstly, she is reduced to her appearance, which seems to

be hypocritical as the male character is not, but the female character must be “When she was

little, people used to refer to her as “the beautiful child.” The name “Beauty” stuck, and, as a

result, her two sisters were often very jealous of her.” (Beaumont 32). As if the damage has not

been done, Beaumont continues to reduce her a few lines later “Beauty got up every day at four

in the morning and started cleaning the house and preparing breakfast for the family…At the end

of two months, however, she became stronger, and the hard work made her very healthy,”

(Beaumont 33). This defines her biggest characteristic: her self-sacrifice. Rowe elaborates on this

further in her work, “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, as later in the tale she goes in her father’s place

to the Beast’s castle when the Beast requests a bride “She sacrifices individual happiness yet a

third time by volunteering in her father’s stead to satisfy the offended Beast…it symbolizes the

potent, sometimes problematic oedipal dependency of young girls.” (Rowe 350). By sacrificing

herself – as a woman should do – she becomes the archetype for female characters, the perfect

woman. She is domestically inclined, even becoming “healthy” from how much cleaning she has

done and is self-sacrificial towards the men in her life, thus making her submissive enough. This

is a common gender norm that is even argued today – that a woman should be beneath a man.

The male stereotype is not forgotten by Beaumont either. As Bordo argues in her piece

titled “Gentleman or Beast? The Double Bind of Masculinity”, a man – according to society –

must be both gentleman and beast, and have a rein on each aspect of their personality. Beast,

while appearing ferocious and ugly, seems to have a kindness to him as written by Beaumont
““Alas,” she said, “it is too bad he is so ugly, for he is so kind.”” (Beaumont 38). However,

Beast seems to be a bleeding heart himself, even going so far as to try and starve himself to death

while Beauty is away. This is a rather manipulative tactic from Beast, a form of narcissistic

triangulation in which he tries to bind her to him with the fear that he will die without her.

Beauty even admits in the letter to her father that she does not love him but will feel grief if he

dies because of her absence, referencing the self-sacrificial nature once again (Beaumont 40).

Bordo describes this “double bind” as she calls it excellently, in that Beauty has tamed

the animal within the Beast and turned him into the gentleman that he is supposed to be “…the

beast, although full of animal rage to begin with, becomes fully tamed under the spell of his love

for [Beauty],” (Bordo 243). Beaumont shows the progression of Beast, from animal to

gentleman, and ends it by turning him into a civilized human and explaining that it was a curse

from a fairy. The “gentleman” aspect is seen as the ideal, here, but the “beast” is also seen as

attractive too, as Bordo explains with her metaphor on sparks and ovens “Women, being ovens

by nature, need the spark of the male blowtorch to set their instinctual fires going.” (Bordo 244).

Beauty seemed to be attracted to Beast while he was in his animal form, due to her own

sexuality. Rowe argues that it’s due to internal anxieties about her own sexuality, wherein she

was so comforted by the oedipal relationship with her father that she was not able to feel real

sexual attraction until she met the Beast. And once she finally felt that attraction towards him,

she didn’t care what he looked like and would continue to sacrifice herself for someone new.

The Frog Prince follows a different structure. An adaptation from the original tale, the

same “Beauty and the Beast” elements are found within it – a beautiful girl and a prince in the

form of an ugly frog. However, this tale seems to be darker than the original wherein the Frog

Prince demands that the princess house him in her castle after he rescues her favorite toy, a
golden ball that had fallen in his pond. This tale seems to suggest the notion of consent, and

dangerously, how women should be motherly towards all things no matter what. Even her father,

the king, pushes these ideals onto her young impressionable mind, with such quotes as ““When

you make a promise, you must keep it.”” (Grimm 49). The Frog Prince seems to take advantage

of the princess’s kindness, demanding she tuck him into her silk covers and share her food, with

the threat that if she does not, he would tell her father (Grimm 49). The “beast” aspects argued

by Bordo are more palpable here – The Frog Prince seems to show no manners whatsoever and

takes advantage of the female character’s natural domesticity and helpfulness. This princess,

much like Beauty in Beaumont’s tale, is another self-sacrificial female, who sacrifices her own

happiness for a male’s.

The princess, unlike Beauty, seems to rebel against the molds that are being set on her by

the overpowering men in her life, retaliating at one point by throwing the frog to the wall in rage.

It doesn’t seem like The Frog Prince obtains any gentlemanly qualities by the end of the story

and marries the princess not with his wooing skill but with an overbearing father who allows the

marriage to go forth. Against the will of the princess, she is forced to marry him now that he is

human.

However, this story does not seem as heteronormative as the others, with the introduction

of the Faithful Heinrich, the prince’s loyal servant. It is explained that the Faithful Heinrich

seemed to almost love the prince, needing his heart to be chained up in order to prevent it from

bursting “Faithful Heinrich had been so saddened by the transformation of his master into a frog

that he had to have three hoops placed around his heart to keep it from bursting with pain and

sorrow…He was overjoyed by the transformation.” (Grimm 50). The Faithful Heinrich seems to

be a rather complex character, in that his sexual preference may lie more towards the prince
himself. While it could be read that the Faithful Heinrich was simply glad that the prince was

back to normal, and he was able to fulfill his duties once again – on a closer read, it seems the

Faithful Heinrich might be a homosexual character. The Faithful Heinrich seems to take on the

gentleman aspect, helping the princess into the carriage while it seems The Frog Prince shows no

overall interest in her.

Bordo explains the common argument of the ‘urge to conquer’, a very beastly idea, as

oversimplified. The Frog Prince certainly aims to conquer the princess, whittle her down until

she becomes a slave to him. In modern times, though, that’s a quality trait “…hypercivilization

[sic] has made man soft, ineffective, and deadened and that his revitalization requires

reconnection with his “animal” nature.” (Bordo 253). The Faithful Heinrich, a gentleman who

has no animal nature in him and is not seen as a conqueror but a ‘servant’, someone who is less

than the prince. The prince, on the other hand who is in touch with his animal side, is seen as a

conqueror and a powerful force of nature.

The dichotomy between the male and female characteristics that each classic fairytale

pushes is astounding, in that impressionable readers just seem to take these characteristics in

with no critical lens. While these fairytales are important, and contain great morals, they should

be picked apart rather than taken at face value. Adaptations work on fixing the wounds that were

originally made in these tales and will continue to do so. The “Beauty and the Beast” archetype

is such a staple in society that it is constantly being redeveloped and changed, but it is important

to note the norms that the older tales promoted to the audience of its time, and to examine them

today more critically than just with a passive read.