WHAT DO THE ROSES IN THE FAIRYTALE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST SYMBOLISE?
In 1740,
French writer Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve published the fairytale La Belle et la Bête, a shorter version
of which was released by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 and became a
bestseller in many countries, including as Beauty
and the Beast in the English-speaking world.
There
are many aspects to the fairytale, such as the idea of overcoming class
barriers, with a bourgeois girl (the youngest daughter of an impoverished
merchant) marrying a rich and powerful castle-owning aristocrat.
But
we are only interested in one aspect, which happens to be the main theme of the
fairytale: This daughter, named La Belle for her beauty, doesn’t want to grow
up and be a wife and mother; she wants to remain a child. Higher forces
consequently intervene in her fate, preventing her from becoming an old
spinster who stays by her father’s side.
In
the beginning, La Belle is happy and content living with her father, to whom
she clings, and does not want to marry; she indeed rejects all suitors. When
her merchant father heads off on a business trip, he asks her if she would like
him to bring her back anything particular. She says she would like a rose, as
these flowers do not grow in the region where she lives. On the way back from
his unsuccessful trip, the merchant is forced to pass through a forest, where
he gets lost. It’s snowing, a fierce wind twice sends him toppling off his
horse, ‘and night coming on, he began to apprehend being either starved to
death with cold and hunger, or else devoured by the wolves, whom he heard
howling all round him.’ He seeks shelter in an enchanted castle, which is completely
deserted but still has a burning fireplace and lavishly set table, as well as a
stable and food for his horse nearby. He warms himself up, fills his empty
belly, quenches his thirst, and finds a ready-made bed that he spends the night
in. The next morning, he enjoys a breakfast that appears to have been prepared
by magic, and it gives him energy for his journey home.
The
merchant feels a sense of unease for having invaded someone else’s property and
privacy uninvited, thereby breaking a taboo. He fears he will be punished by
the lord of the castle, who is no doubt rich and powerful. The lord of the
castle does end up seeking revenge, but not until later. Readers, who identify
with the merchant, also feel this sense of unease and fear of punishment.
The
merchant does indeed break a taboo—in two respects: By entering someone else’s
property, and also in another, more serious way, which we will come to.
When
he leaves the castle the next morning to collect his horse and continue his
journey home, he is surprised to find it is no longer winter outside; it is in
fact warm. The sight of blossoming rose bushes in the castle grounds reminds
him of his youngest daughter’s request, and he breaks off a sprig to take it
back for her. That’s when a frightful beast suddenly appears, who is obviously
the lord of the castle. ‘You are very ungrateful,’ the beast says to him in a sinister
voice; ‘I have saved your life by receiving you into my castle, and, in return,
you steal my roses, which I value beyond any thing in the universe …’. To atone
for his sins, the merchant must offer up his youngest daughter to the beast as
a bride, otherwise the beast will kill him. The father obeys and takes La Belle
to the beast’s castle, where she lives with the beast, gradually getting used
to him and even growing fond of him. But her love breaks the spell, and the
beast is transformed back into the handsome prince he used to be before an evil
fairy turned him into a horrible beast. The pair live happily ever after as a
royal couple.
There
must have been something special about the roses the merchant broke off,
because the beast didn’t mind the intruder housing and feeding his horse in his
stable, sprawling out on the sofa by the fire, feasting on the food and wine
that had been served up, and spending the night in the ready-made bed. Only
when the merchant laid his hands on the roses did the lord of the castle become
enraged.
The father’s act of snapping off the roses thus symbolises his subconscious
desire to have sex with his youngest daughter, and reveals that he is
incestuously fixated on her and wants to bind her to him instead of marrying
her off. But the daughter is also incestuously fixated on her father – as
evidenced by the fact that her first thought when her father asks her what she
wants him to bring back for her is a rose.
The roses are a metaphor for La Belle, and they bloom in the garden of the
beast’s castle – a symbolic portent of the girl’s ultimate fate: That of
effectively being uprooted from her childhood home, where she continues to live
with her father, and being replanted in the garden of her future groom, so as
to keep blossoming there.
This idea of replanting is a commonly used symbol for girls who become wives
and mothers as a result of being married off.
In Russia’s Tarnogsky District,
matchmakers would often ask the father of an unmarried girl:
You have a little flower,
and we have a garden. Why don’t we replant the little flower in our garden? (1)
And
in Croatia’s Ston region, north of Dubrovnik, brides are always compared with a
flower to be replanted: The father of the groom acts as a matchmaker and
approaches the father of the bride, saying:
As I was walking along with
my companions, I spotted a beautiful red flower here, which I would love to
replant in my garden. So I ask you, if possible, to give this flower to me. (2)
This
symbolism of replanting the blossoming bride in her husband’s garden also serves
as the basis of Goethe’s poem Found:
Once
through the forest
Alone I went;
To seek for nothing
My thoughts were bent.
I saw i'
the shadow
A flower stand there
As stars it glisten'd,
As eyes 'twas fair.
I sought
to pluck it,—
It gently said:
"Shall I be gather'd
Only to fade?"
With all
its roots
I dug it with care,
And took it home
To my garden fair.
In silent
corner
Soon it was set;
There grows it ever,
There blooms it yet. (3)
In La Belle et la Bête, too, the roses
represent the daughter who is fated to be replanted, and whose place is no
longer in her father’s house, but rather in her husband’s garden. The father
picks roses not intended for him. This act symbolises the subconscious desire
for incest, which forms part of the daughter’s fixation on her father, and the
father’s fixation on his daughter. This fixation runs contrary to natural
instincts, including those in the body and mind of the blossoming daughter,
which seek to make her a wife and mother, and which are embodied by the beast,
who helps Mother Nature prevail.
1) "У вас есть цветоцик, а у нас есть садоцик. Вот, нельзя ли нам этот цветоцик перевести (или посадить) в наш садоцик?" - Д. М. Балашов / Ю. И. Марченко: Русская свадьба, p. 29
2) Ida von Düringsfeld / Otto von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld: Hochzeitsbuch, p. 74
