The "Beast"
is a bastion of hell, a warrior, a magician and a king. But can
he be a lover, too? Only "Beauty" can determine the truth, for
her naiveté will lead her to find the Beast's inner soul. Her
innocence and purity of heart may require her to trespass in
Hades, but she will return unscathed leading the Beast, by his
fingertips and his heart-strings, to the land of the living.
Beauty learns that the ultimate sacrifice will provide a most
memorable reward. For Beauty's sense of truth and honor prevails and
she opens her heart to The Beast's ravaged, but passionate
soul.
This romantic fairy tale lends itself well to the genre of
romance. A story of true opposites, Beauty is all that is good
and pure, while the Beast is untamed, wild and uninhibited.
Beauty teaches the Beast to trust his own innocence and goodness,
while the Beast teaches Beauty about the world…and love.
You will find some of the books on this list feature a reversal
of the story, where the heroine is "the beast;" but in all the
books, there is one character living in darkness, looking for
the purity of light that only love can bestow.
What's The Appeal?
The "Beast" is an awfully sexy
hero! Had French fairyteller Charles Perrault only suspected that he
would be opening the floodgate of feminine fantasy upon penning
this famous story, he might have had second thoughts. For, really,
what common man can compete with the Beast?
Not exactly a
feminist treatise, (but what fairy tale that reaches us on such
a primitive level is?) the story features Beauty, the archetypal
virgin, who is willing to sacrifice herself for her family. Loved by
all, she is so pure that when faced with the worst monster known to
mankind she is able to see far beyond the surface and
recognize "The Beast" to be as pure and good as she is. Her love and
faith transforms him from monster into man, and literally leads
him from the land of the dead into the land of the living.
The Beast, a blending of all male archetypes, appeals universally
to women in all cultures and societies. He is more than a man,
and has an animal-like virility that must be tamed! You've
heard about "taming the wild beast;" well, this is where the
term best applies. In The Beauty and the Beast tale, the heroine is
faced with a tremendous challenge, but in turn, is given the
ultimate reward sexually.
But the sexual reward is only part
of the heroine's bounty. For really, the beast's greatest attraction
to the heroine is his retreat from society–hidden in his
lair, he has been psychologically wounded and needs to be restored
to manhood. Beauty must strive to win his trust and love with
all her feminine charms. So what starts as the ultimate act of
sacrifice for Beauty becomes a reaffirmation of her own best
gifts.
The true magic of the story revolves around the fusion of
Beauty's innocence with the beast's unequivocal love. For it
isn't until the end of the story that Beauty realizes that she
loves the beast in his own right, not simply out of goodness!
-Kate Ryan
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