The story of “Beauty and the Beast” has remained as one of the most famous, classic narratives in history, rightfully earning the reputation of being a tale as old as time. In this fairy tale, common western themes of perfection, civility and tameness are embodied and reinforced. Beauty is presented as an obedient, passive character who accepts her fate, and through her continuous self-sacrifice, modesty, and virtue, she is able to tame the wildness of the Beast and transform him into a human; She casts herself as a sacrificial lamb, and is rewarded. However, Angela Carter offers a new variation on this tale through “The Tiger’s Bride”. In “The Tiger’s Bride”, Carter offers a more feminist outlook by focusing on the themes of sexuality and gender inequality, thus subverting typical western conventions. She suggests that women have the ability to break the stereotype of the compliant female who exists solely to be looked upon as a possession and answer to men’s wishes. She does this through her use of rhetorical elements, such as diction and symbolism, as well as character detail, highlighting the independent and honest manner of the heroine and her sexual awakening.
Carter has the heroine of “The Tiger’s Bride” tell her own story, allowing her to take control of her own life and the literary tradition. Unlike Western conventions, which doesn’t allow the female characters to make their own decisions and shows them as widely dependent, Beauty thinks for herself and has a sense of agency. This is shown when Beauty takes action and decides to move her family to an Italian village because of the fact that it has no casino and she knows her father is a profligate gambler (Carter, 62). Therefore, Beauty makes the most of her own influence, thinking things through, showing that she is more than just her looks. Beauty immediately starts her tale by claiming: “my father lost me to the Beast at cards” (Carter, 61). Beauty is not oblivious to her objectification. She knows that she is being traded around, treated like a money bag or any other material convenience. Although she ultimately can’t change her fate at this particular moment, She allows herself to recognize her self worth. She is not passive or forgiving. Instead, by choosing this to be the opening sentence of her narrative, Carter puts emphasis on Beauty’s ability to become enraged and her cynical worldview. This use of diction also becomes clear when Beauty draws the curtain of the carriage that she is to be shipped off in when she sees her father: “my spite was sharp as broken glass” (Carter, 67). Beauty uses a simile to convey her emotions and isn’t afraid to act accordingly. Despite her father being a male figure, and therefore raised at a higher status through societal standards, she refuses to give him the respect of acknowledging his presence or the satisfaction of forgiveness. Thus, she challenges the social expectation of submissiveness and tolerance.
Beauty also challenges stereotypes through the evolution of her sexual awakening. When Beast requests that Beauty present herself naked for him, she doesn’t retreat back into timidness or humiliation. Instead, she loudly laughs: “I let out a raucous guffaw; no young lady laughs like that!…But I did. And do” (Carter, 70). She offers to give him sex, but requests that she get paid for it, much like the way prostitutes work. Although she initially does this to shame Beast, by taking this action, Beauty shows that she can be in control of her own body. Unlike the tame, docile, and pure females of typical western conventions, Beauty isn’t afraid to be open when it comes to her sexuality and takes full ownership of it, which is shown through her laughter. Neither is she ashamed of the proposal she makes.
The development of Beauty’s sexuality is also promoted through her At one point she makes the realization that just as men see animals as soulless, she, also, is seen as not possessing one: “If I could see not one single soul in that wilderness of desolation all around me, then the six of us…could boast amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things” (Carter, 76). It is here that Beauty begins to notice her bestiality and begins to see herself as an equal to the beast; she begins to tap into her bestial desires. Through diction, she denigrates the soul (claiming they are “flimsy” and “insubstantial”), the one thing that should make her equal to man. Thus, she eliminates gender in a seemingly feministic way; women and beasts starting off as equals leads to an immediate strength to her female identity.
(CAN CONNECT THIS PARAGRAPH TO PREVIOUS) Later, when the Beast sheds off his disguise to reveal his true nature, that of a tiger, Beauty appears to show a genuine sexual attraction towards him for the first time: “A great, feline, tawny shape whose pelt was barred with a savage geometry of bars the colour of burned wood. His domed, heavy head, so terrible he must hide it. How subtle the muscles, how profound the tread. The annihilating vehemence of his eyes, like twin sun” (Carter, 77). Here, she is attracted to his beastly form, not in spite of it. This is the starting moment of true equality between the two characters. Beast understands that if he must remove any tension between himself and Beauty, he must first himself get naked; there is a necessity to create a neutral atmosphere if there is going to be any sort of connection between them. In effect, the social construct of gender roles becomes non existent in this moment. This gesture is reciprocated by Beauty and she bears her nakedness for him for the first time: “I showed his grave silence my white skin, my red nipples, and the horses turned their heads to watch me, also, as if they, too, were courteously curious as to the fleshy nature of women” (Carter, 78). Beauty mentions the “fleshy” nature of women, and by taking ownership of her nakedness she brings together her femininity and sexuality. Once she sheds her clothes, she sheds with them the social constraints and limitations that have become imposed upon her in which a woman has to restrict herself to fit a certain mold. Just as the Beast takes off his disguise, Beauty strips herself from the disguise of chastity and virtue that society forces her to wear in order to be seen as acceptable. Ultimately, there is a sense of freedom that Beauty immediately experiences, as the act of sexual attraction and/or action is seen as natural and necessary, rather than something to restrict or deny. Although Beauty struggles with understanding her new-found sexuality: “I was unaccustomed to nakedness. I was so unused to my own skin that to take off all my clothes involved a kind of flaying…it is not natural for humankind to go naked not since first we hid our loins with fig leaves” (Carter, 79), she embraces it and understands that she is breaking societal norms through her nakedness. By doing this, Beauty gains autonomous capacity outside the male influence.
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Author and psychologist Bruno Bettelheim comments on the effect of fairy tales on the psychological development of young children in his work “The Struggle for Meaning”. In it, he argues that “many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant and wish fulfilling images should be presented to the child-that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one sided fare nourishes the the mind only in a one sided way and real life is not all sunny” (272). Through “The Tiger’s Bride”, Angela Carter uses the character of Beauty to exhibit her frustrations with the culture of dampening down folk tales into parables of proper morality. Instead, she offers an alternate version of the highly popular “Beauty and the Beast” tale, subverting from the patronizing motifs of goodness and duty. She presents a protagonist who, although is the embodiment of physical beauty, also struggles with her own objectification and sexuality. In this retelling, Beauty is driven by her pride and honor rather than self-sacrifice, virtues not often presented in classical stories.