One of the most loved Disney movies of all time, the 1991 animated movie Beauty and the Beast directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale features talking teacups, enchanted castles, gorgeous animation, catchy songs, and large helping of traditional gender roles. The countless favorite of many children and adults, many people know the story well. Belle, the bookish, dreamy, and beautiful daughter of an inventor is the talk of the town and the fixation of the most handsome guy around, the pushy and egotistical Gaston. After sacrificing herself for her father, Belle becomes imprisoned in an enchanted castle. Everyone in the castle is under a spell due to the selfish prince who lived there due to his failure to see what was inside of people. As a result, he is turned into a hideous beast and all of his servants are turned into household objects. To break this spell, he must fall in love with a girl and have her love him in return, despite his hideous exterior. But unfortunately for the Beast it’s not only his exterior that’s hideous. He treats Belle with no respect, even going so far as to threaten and yell at her. He eventually changes her heart with the help of his enchanted friends and she changes his through her kindness. Gaston tries his utmost to make Belle his own, entrapping her and fighting the Beast, but eventually he is unsuccessful, the good guys win, and the whole castle and its inhabitants are transformed by love and everybody lives happily ever after. The primary female character, Belle, is introduced in the beginning scenes with her nose in a book, rolling her eyes at the continual advances of the most handsome man in town as the background chorus sings about how odd she is. She then talks about how she yearns for adv... ... middle of paper ... ...he full scope of what a character can do. Every story needs a villain, and Beauty and the Beast’s is Gaston. Gaston is a handsome, strong, and powerful member of the community. He's also, in Belle's words, "rude and conceited" and is shown frequently injuring his sidekick due to negligence, checking his reflection in the mirror and talking about how wonderful he is. Interestingly, unlike other Disney villains who are evil due to a thirst for power or violent behavior, Gaston is considered a villain because of his poor treatment of women. His evil deeds such as attempting to sell Belle's father to the asylum or stabbing the Beast are done in the name of his conquest; his main objective is to win Belle like a prize for the taking. By showing a misogynistic character in a negative light, the film attempts to define what is and isn’t an acceptable way to treat women.
The next morning, as he leaves the castle he breaks a rose of its stem and the Beast appears. Beast is angry with this intruder's thanklessness and tells the man that he will spare the man's life if he returns in a month to give him one of the daughters. The man returns home and tells the whole family of the enchanted castle and the promise made to the Beast. Beauty steps up as the daughter that will give up her freedom for her father. When the month is up, Beauty enters the castle to await her fate.
In the Princess Bride the author William Goldman decides to kill off Wesley the main character of the romance comedy. But when he does he has a strange drawback and has the sudden realization of what he had just done. He mourns, grieves, and finds himself in his very own “Pit of Despair.” Yet how can this be, he had never experienced such a tragedy himself, but in his writing of a fictional fantasy character he is overwhelmed with these genuine emotions. Sentiments and actions are easier to access and put into writing if one has already experienced the event. Skilled authors can write pieces without experience by using similar emotions and merging them to create what one would expect to feel. The more believable the world that is conjured is to the audience the more they will be impacted by tragedies and trials in a story. A true
In fact, Belle is not actively seeking love, but rather stumbles onto it, as a consequence of her own bravery and sacrifice. The relationship that grows between the beauty and the Beast is often the target of criticism as it can be perceived as Stockholm’s syndrome on Belle’s part and is seen to advocate that women should remain with their loved ones even if they are abusive. This is aspect of the film is condemned as it suggest that, somehow and through love, the abusive husband or lover can better himself. And although one can read the film as such, another could see that Beauty and the Beast is the tale of a woman who enters a man’s life and initiates and reciprocally healing and growing bond: Belle learns to see beyond someone’s appearance, and the Beast learns to let other people in. This is literally reflected by his complete forbiddance to have any visitors in his castle as the castle symbolizes his soul. This relationship of equals demonstrates that, contrarily to Disney films such as Cinderella or even The Little Mermaid where all a man or a woman need to fall in love is to set eyes on one another, without having to know anything about each other, or even share a discussion. The Disney princess here is not a princess but a villager, and Prince Charming is not charming but rather temperamental. The unusual end of the animated feature also mirrors this unusual
From climbing up 700 foot cliffs, fighting off unusually large rodents, and coming back from the dead, The Princess Bride is the story of an adventure that always keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The journey is displayed through a Romance Narrative structure that is predictable, but engaging. The structure consists of aspects prominently displayed during the movie: innocence, initiation, challenges, the Underworld, and the Return. We follow the hero Westley as he makes his way through this mission fueled by his love for a woman named Buttercup and the lengths from which he will go to be with her.
In Disney classics, if characters like the Beast can be misconstrued by Belle, everyday people could commit a similar crime. Beauty and the Beast was more than a story about love, it was a story about misjudgement. In a way, I have my own version, except mine did not end in a happily ever after.
Through the three revisions of Beauty and The Beast, the fairy tales retold share many similarities as well as many differences according to their time period. In all three versions femininity and masculinity are presented in many ways. Femininity is shown through all three main female characters, Belle from the famous Disney film “The Beauty and The Beast”, the narrator in “Tiger’s Bride”, and Psyche in “Cupid and Psyche”. In all three versions, the female characters breaks society’s expectations of a typical woman. In CP Psyche stands up to Cupid’s mother Venus and accomplishes these activities usually performed by males. She shows society that women can overcome male activities and have strength to complete the same tasks. She breaks tradition of the male character fighting for her because in this version she takes on the hero role and fights for Cupid. This was not something ordinarily done by woman characters during this time. In TB the narrator breaks the tradition of the innocent stereotypical woman figure. The narrator exposes and does things most woman would never have the nerve to do. She shows society that women can fault their beauty in other ways. Even if society does not make it acceptable to have sex before marriage, she shows that women can expose their body and beauty in many ways. In DB version Belle is a great example that women should not be looked at as dolls and let males have control over them. She shows society that woman can be independent and educated. She does not get married to the most handsome male in town however she goes after someone who deeply cares about her. She displays a great example of how woman have their own mind and can think for themselves. Woman are allowed to make decisions and have ...
As a result of changes in conditions, Montag’s dynamic character unfurls as he uncovers his concealed state of humanity, empowering him to exhibit human emotions through selflessness and empathy. As Montag’s fraud cover of statistification is diminished, exposing his state of humanity, he begins to loathe the fabricated essence established by authority, impacting him to address reality. In the midst of his discussion with his wife Mildred about their lifestyle, Montag bitterly stated, “Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Maybe the books can get us half way out of the cave. They might just stop us making the same damn insane mistakes” (70).
In the novel In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, is a story of three girls who develop from being innocent girls to being part of a revolutionary to stop Trujillo a Dominican dictator. Throughout the story we see each of the sisters go through hard moments in their life. However the sister that has developed the most though is Minerva. She goes from being just a girl with a dream to be a lawyer too a woman willing to sacrifice anything to support the revolution and stop Trujillo.
People are like pieces of various, mind-blowing art projects; they come in all shapes and sizes, and some are more detailed than others. Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Possibility of Evil”, provides a specific example in one character. Miss Strangeworth is introduced, and she can be described as arrogant, outgoing, and meddlesome. Miss Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considering what she does, what the narrator says about her, and how other characters interact with her.
Throughout the movie The Beauty and The Beast Disney presents a classic fairytale, but when seen in a different perspective it demonstrated that not everything is as it seems. Belle is affected by multiple disorders starting with Introversion, Schizoid Personality Disorder, Schizophrenia as well as Stockholm Syndrome. However, with psychoactive drugs and extensive therapy Belle can be treated to allow her to progress prevent a relapse in her daily
Blanche DuBois is a character full of life tragedies and struggles with her internal conflicts throughout the play. The first introduction of Blanche portrays her as a more cultured and highly sophisticated individual, than the average local in Elysian Fields. Dubois was quick to claim to be from an upper class of society, by daintily dressing in white suite with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earnings of pearl, white gloves and hat (Williams 95). The color white usually signified something that was pure and blameless, which was the total opposite with Blanche, all this was part of an image she was trying to portray. She tried covering up the truths of her life like; her sexual deviants, the loss of her job, and her alcoholism. All these events foreshadows the downfall of Blanche’s character which eventually led her to the insane asylum. She is an extremely complicated character who seems to be out of her element both physically and mentally, and seems to be stuck in her youthful years. Blanche’s mind is all disarrayed leaving her so lost and confused about life allowing her to lash out in ways that are sexual in nature. Her sexual tendencies are exceedingly inappropriate do to the nature of her actions. Balance tries to avoid the true reality of what was going on in her life, it was as if it was problematic for her to differentiate between reality and the desires of her heart. She just wanted a better future for herself, by trying to submerge herself in a life that was constructed off lies and deception. She captivated herself in romantic fantasies that begun as something that was harmless, then escalates into something that is morally unacceptable.
Cinderella’s mother passed away and her father remarried a woman who had two daughters from a previous marriage. A few weeks passed and a prince is holding a three day festival and all the beautiful young girls in the town were invited. Cinderella wanted to go but her evil stepmother gave her two impossible tasks to complete before she could attend the festival. Cinderella completes the two tasks with the help of her bird friends and her mother’s grave. Cinderella goes to the festival and she dances with the prince all three days. Finally, the prince has fallen in love with her and eventually they get married. Fairytales and Disney productions threaten gender politics and women’s role by portraying women in certain areas like domestic behaviors
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice the reader is exposed to many major characters such as Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and Charles Bingley, but there are also minor characters that are important to the story too. Throughout Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen uses these minor characters to play significant roles in the lives of the main characters as well as play a symbol of certain themes. The entire novel is filled with many key characters that add to either the story or to the characters personalities and perspectives. Three minor characters that play a small, but significant role in the outcome of many events in Pride and Prejudice are Charlotte Lucas, Lady Catherine, and Miss Bingley. These three characters hold many ideas
The main protagonist of the story, Elizabeth Bennet (nicknamed both Lizzy and Eliza), is the second daughter in the Bennet family. Second only to her elder sister in beauty, Elizabeth’s figure is said to be “light and pleasing,” with “dark eyes,” and “intelligent…expression” (24). At 20 years old, she is still creating her place in society. Known for her wit and playful nature, “Elizabeth is the soul of Pride and Prejudice, [she] reveals in her own person the very title qualities that she spots so easily” (“Pride and Prejudice”) in others. Her insightfulness often leads her to jump to conclusions and think herself above social demand. These tendencies lead her to be prejudice towards others; this is an essential characteristic of her role
The one thing that separates Beauty and the Beast from all the other fairy tales is that Beauty gets to know the Beast before marrying him. She lives with him for several months and gets to know him for what he is inside. He is not a prince that rescues her but she is a woman that rescues him. It is only when she professes her love for him that he is transformed. If it wasn’t for her love of the Beast from the inside he would have never been transformed and they would not have been wed. Yes, he helps her mature and become a beautiful, young women but it is her that causes the transformation.