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Beast Complex Revisited
It has been almost two years since I first posted about my Beast Complex, thereby enlightening the world as to why beasts make the best lovers and are infinitely to be preferred to handsome princes. It may be helpful to my readers to review the initial post at http://ercasse-ainince.livejournal.com/21800.html. For those too lazy to do so, I'll reiterate that I identified four literary beasts -- the beast from "Beauty and the Beast"; Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre; Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, from the musical named for him; and Cyrano de Bergerac from the play bearing his name. The beast qualities I identified are ugliness, masculinity, physical strength, and a love that is passionate, focused (on one beloved), faithful, and selfless.
In the intervening two years, I have ruminated over my intense reaction to beasts. It seems I have always felt this way. (I've noted before that all my education and literary training doesn't seem to change my opinions but only to augment my ability to express and defend them. Basically, one might say I have a BA in BS.) "Beauty and the Beast" has been my favorite fairy tale for as long as I can remember. I loved Erik and despised Raoul from my first hearing the Phantom soundtrack at eleven or twelve years old, long before I had any real romantic understanding. And Rochester is my number-one literary crush of all time. Even this entry at http://ercasse-ainince.livejournal.com/10674.html#cutid1, posted nearly a year before I first identified Beast Complex, shows the tendency was there before I realized it. What is it that resonates so between beasts and my soul?
To come nearer the answer to that question, I have begun to study the beast's beloved, his Beauty. After all, she, like me, loves and appreciates the beast. By studying her and seeing what she and I have in common, I may come to a fuller understanding of myself and my attraction to the beast.
Also, I have begun to look at some more recent takes on Beauties and beasts and handsome princes. I'm surprised and pleased to see that writers of various mediums are coming around to my view, exalting the beast and mocking the prince. These tidbits, however, I may save to post later under the title "Nobody Likes a Handsome Prince."
While contemplating Beast Complex one day, my muse pointed out to me one trend among beasts that I hadn't before noticed, that of luxury. When a Beauty enters the world of her beast, she is surrounded by luxury, often in stark contrast to the poverty of her former life. The fairy-tale beast lives in a beautiful palace with servants, invisible or otherwise, who grant Beauty's every wish and whim. Mr. Rochester's splendid residence at Thornfield Hall dazzles Jane. The Phantom's lair below the opera, though I've heard some disparage it as cluttered like an attic, is nevertheless rich and lavish, lit sumptuously with candles, hung with luxurious drapes. Just think of the carved-swan bed, with its brilliant spread and curtain canopy, where he lays the sleeping Christine. (For this luxury trend, we will have to excuse Cyrano. He is still a beast, but he doesn't fit the luxury mold.) ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) firebreatherjen had me read The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey, a more recent and less "literary" beauty-and-the-beast story. It, too, has the beastly Jason Cameron living in the lap of luxury, where he brings the scholarly Rose to aid him in his studies. These beasts' luxurious homes are in sharp contrast to their Beauties' former lives. The fairy-tale Beauty's father has lost his profitable shipping business and moved his family to a much smaller and plainer home. The orphan Jane Eyre comes to Thornfield from a charity school where she was first a student and then a teacher. The orphan Christine lives in the ballet dormitories of the Opera Populaire. Rose has just lost her father and her livelihood and has had to become a working girl. (Of course, we are leaving out the wealthy Roxanne, as we did her poor beast Cyrano.)
So what does luxury have to do with being a beast? What does it mean to the impoverished Beauty? Yes, a fortune makes the beast a better prospect, but that isn't the point. Beauty has never been mercenary in any of her incarnations. In fact, she is the least materialistic of the fairy-tale sisters, the others of whom ask their father to bring them expensive gifts while Beauty requests only a rose, and that only when pressed. Beauty is, in fact, quite selfless. The 1987 Beauty and the Beast film has Beauty say to her siblings, "Without you, I'd have all this lovely time just to devote to myself. Someday... someday." Her brother replies, "If you had time for yourself, Beauty, you wouldn't know what to do with it." Beauty asks, "I wouldn't?" He responds, "No, you're much too unselfish to enjoy it." He is, of course, dead wrong. And here we come to my newest epiphany concerning Beauty and the beast.
The beast, with his riches and, more importantly, with his intense devotion to Beauty, allows the selfless Beauty finally to receive rather than to give. The vivid contrast between Beauty's former life of poverty and her life in the beast's luxurious home is the visual realization of her translation from giver to receiver. To the unfailingly selfless Beauty, who has rarely been allowed anything for herself, entering this world of receiving is magical -- an enchanted castle in a forest, a candle-lit isle in an underground lake. Even Thornfield Hall, a mere mansion of no particular magical quality, is wonderful to the selfless Jane. Jane comes there looking for "A new servitude," saying "There is something in that. I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet. It is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly, but no more than sounds for me, and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be a matter of fact. Any one may serve." And once Jane has lived at Thornfield, she says, "I love Thornfield: I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life [. . .]. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high." For Jane, Thornfield is magical solely because she has received there and nowhere else.
Of course, no selfless Beauty would presume, on entering a beast's home, that any of his luxuries are for her. The beast must give them to her. The Disney version has Belle shocked when the beast says, "I'll show you to your room." She thought she was to stay in the tower prison. In the fairy tale, Beauty finds a door clearly marked "Beauty's Room" behind which is a beautiful apartment filled with feminine luxuries that seem to have been selected specifically with her in mind. A note tells her "Here you are queen." Mercedes Lackey's Rose, too, is afforded a splendid apartment in Jason Cameron's mansion. Both Beauty and Rose are given lovely dresses to wear by their beasts. (Rochester offers Jane dresses and jewels and every luxury she can imagine, but the unreasonably prim Jane refuses to accept them.) And contrary to what the 1987 film brother says, Beauty is quite capable of enjoying all the beast's gifts, just as the beast is pleased to give them. His wealth has ceased to bring him joy in his loneliness, but now he finds joy in sharing it with his Beauty.
Still, it is certainly not only luxury that pleases Beauty about living with the beast. It isn't that she puts up with him because she gets to share in his wealth. The beast gives his Beauty not only his wealth (He is so wealthy that swamping her in luxury is no sacrifice.) but also his time, attention, and devotion. In his castle, in his heart, she is queen. Everything she says and does, every wish and dream she has is of utmost importance to him. More telling than the richness of his gifts is their aptness, how fitting they are for Beauty and for Beauty alone. She likes books; he gives her a library (in the fairy tale, too, not only in Disney). Christine dreams of a protecting angel of music; Erik becomes her angel. And even more important than gifts is time. Whereas before Beauty spends all of her time helping others, now she has time for herself. In the beast's world, there is only Queen Beauty and her loving beast. The only being who has contact with her is the one being who wishes only to serve her and please her. Think of what that means to Beauty. She cannot go against her selfless nature. She is compelled to serve those around her. Beauty's family, Jane's students, others' needs have always come first. What does Erik need? He needs Christine. What does Rochester need? He needs Jane. What does the beast need? He needs Beauty.
I hear some readers now hearkening back to the statement by Beauty's brother in the 1987 film that Beauty is too selfless to enjoy so much time to herself. I agree that a life spent in meaningless self-gratification would not be amenable to Beauty. But we must remember that she has the beast. In the beast's castle, Beauty has not only the pleasure of being queen but also the joy of knowing she is helping another. She is, in fact, the only thing that makes the beast's life worth living. Without her, he would die. (See my previous entry on Beast Complex for the fates of Erik, Rochester, and the beast without Christine, Jane, and Beauty respectively.) The selfless Beauty is in the glorious position of being able to accept all the wealth, time, and devotion the beast offers without suffering the slightest guilt. She knows that by accepting, she is only pleasing him. Her entire existence is pleasing to him. As Jane says of her relationship with Rochester, "There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought life and light to my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived, and he lived in mine."
In short, my newest epiphany concerning Beast Complex is that I love the beast because he allows me to be selfish. He turns the tables on me and my selflessness. (brukwurm says I have a scary definition of "selfless." She may be right.) As a teaser for the "Nobody Likes a Handsome Prince" post, I'll point out that no handsome prince can give the way a beast does. A handsome prince may have the money, but he has so many distractions and obligations that his princess can never be queen of his heart the way Beauty is queen of the beast's heart. No handsome prince's world of publicity and politics and duty can compare with the private world of love and devotion that is a beast's castle, a Phantom's underground island. We don't even have to bother posting a "Do Not Disturb" sign.
Tags: beast complex, beauty and the beast, cyrano de bergerac, fictitious men, jane eyre, literature, phantom of the opera
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