Mela Ulundo To Love a Beast
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firebreatherjen has officially recognized what she calls my "beast complex." I'm not sure I like the mental-illness connotation of "complex" nor or "syndrome," but I don't know how better to term my predilection for
My beast complex is understood by few and shared by fewer. Even among those who accept love for and infatuation with fictitious men, there are few who go for beasts. After all, the fairy-tale beast is changed into a prince before he is allowed to wed Beauty (though not in the very earliest version). When I voice my disappointment at this ending, the most common response is one of disgust or cries of, "But that's bestiality!" These respondents fail to see what it is that I (and Beauty) love about the beast. I do not love his fur or fangs or whiskers. It is not his beast form that I love. It is the passionate and masculine lover that he is because of that form.
A literary beast's physical form does not have to be one of an animal, as Beauty's beast. He can be deformed like the Phantom of the Opera; he can have one defining hideous feature like Cyrano de Bergerac; or he can be just plain ugly like Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester. But ugliness is not the only physical criterion for qualifying as a literary beast. Another physical trait that these four beasts share is strength and power. Beauty’s beast has the strength of a monster and terrifying claws and fangs. Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, has the strength and agility to strangle men quickly and efficiently with his Punjab Lasso. When he is finished, he still has enough breath to come on stage and sing like an angel. Cyrano de Bergerac kills a hundred men with his sword all by himself. Mr. Rochester, too, is quite proud of his broad shoulders, athletic physique, and physical strength.
What is attractive about ugliness and physical strength? I would ask, rather, what is unattractive about them? The greater part of the beauty in the Beauty and the Beast story lies in the contrast between the lovers, the delicate beauty and the hideous beast. He makes her more beautiful by comparison. Even if she weren't beautiful to begin with, even if she were plain, she is beautiful when she stands next to him. Roxanne’s blond hair might suffer by a comparison to that of the handsome Christian, but she is a dazzling beauty next to Cyrano. Jane Eyre notes that one of her objections to marrying the handsome St. John Rivers is that he is so handsome while she is so plain. St. John tells her, “You are formed for labor, not for love,” but Rochester finds her beautiful; and in his arms, she is "blooming and smiling and pretty." Erik the Phantom, too, makes his Christine beautiful. She is just a chorus girl in the ballet numbers until he gives her the gift of his music and makes her prima donna. It is only then that Raoul notices her and makes the revealing comment "What a change! You're really not a bit the gawkish girl that once you were!" But it is Erik's power and not Raoul's that has effected the transformation. It takes a beast to make a Beauty.
The same concept applies to a beast's strength, his masculine power. By contrast, his Beauty is more feminine. If he is big and dark and hairy, all the better the contrast. Next to him, she is delicate and fair and smooth. And, of course, physical strength is sexy in a male lover.
A beast’s strength also makes him a powerful protector of his Beauty. She and her interests are his to guard with that magnificent power of his. The beast will protect Beauty with the strength of a bear, the ferocity of a lion, and the tenacity of a guard dog. Erik the Phantom makes sure to sweep all of Christine’s rivals and obstacles out of the way with threats, falling chandeliers, and even a murder or two. Rochester tells Jane, “Your station is in my heart and on the necks of those who would insult you.” And Cyrano, during Roxanne’s clandestine wedding to Christian, keeps away the duke who would stop it.
But a literary beast’s appeal lies in much more than the physical. A beast loves as no man, as no mere mortal can love. His love is focused entirely on one object, his Beauty. There is no other woman for him. It is true that part of a Beauty’s security of being a beast’s only love is that no other woman will have him, but that is only part. Literary beasts don’t glance at other women. They love only one. Cyrano frequents the theater, where many grand ladies and pretty actresses and dancers attend; still, he loves only Roxanne. Erik the Phantom says to Christine, “You alone can make my song take flight.” Mr. Rochester has had numerous women of varying charms, but he has loved none but his Jane. She alone inspires him to give up his immoral ways and commence a life “more worthy of an immortal being.”
And there we have another aspect of a beast’s unmatched love: its intensity. Because beasts are ugly and alone, they know the value of intimacy and love as no handsome prince with twenty pretty prospects can ever know it. A prince could live a life without love quite happily. He would hunt and feast and try on new clothes, have a new girl in his bed every night, and maybe even mull over a matter of state or two and feel useful. For a beast, a life without love is miserable – a dark, empty castle; a dripping, lonely lair below the opera house. Whatever other pursuits he has – Cyrano’s fencing, Rochester’s travels, Erik’s music – are not enough for him, nor are they even a significant distraction from his sighing and dreaming of love. And when he finds a recipient for his love, what fireworks! What passion! His life now has hope and meaning. So smitten is Erik the Phantom that he builds a life-size replica of Christine in a bridal gown and spends six months writing an opera expressly to woo her. So great is Cyrano’s ecstasy at believing Roxanne loves him that he fights and vanquishes a hundred men with the sword.
And yet, as intense as a beast’s love is, it is unselfish (or becomes so). Beauty needs not to fear that he will keep her against her will. The fairy-tale beast lets his Beauty leave to go and care for her sick father. Though he begs her to return, he does not threaten her, as he did her father, to “come and fetch” her back. Erik the Phantom, at the dramatic and emotional climax of the musical, lets Christine go with Raoul. Rochester chides Jane, on her return to him, for having been afraid that he would retain her by force or try to extort “one kiss” from her unwilling. And Cyrano, though he loves Roxanne so deeply, assists her in conveying messages to Christian, arranging meetings, and even accomplishing their hasty marriage.
This selfless love, however, does not come without cost to one who loves so deeply as a beast. Without his Beauty, he will die, if not actually then at least to any hope of a happy life thereafter. When Beauty returns to the beast almost too late, she finds him dead or dying. Erik the Phantom, on having let Christine go, declares, “It’s over now, the Music of the Night” and disappears leaving only his mask behind. Rochester cries out to Jane as she leaves, “My hope—my love—my life!” When she returns, she finds his mansion burned, his body crippled, and his life meaningless without her.
The contrast of this gloomy picture and that of the life of a beast whose Beauty stays with him and loves him shows Beauty’s great power in this relationship. She has the choice to be either his heroine or his ruin, his salvation or his undoing, his life or his death. No such power would be hers in a relationship with a handsome prince, a Raoul, or a Christian. They could never value her as she is valued by her beast. Their lives were livable before her and would be livable again after her. Were she to leave, then within a year, a month, a week, even, these men would have new lovers. A beast alone is capable of dying of a broken heart.
What painted prince can compete with this big, strong, masculine, powerful, passionate, faithful beast?
