She has her pick of books from the castle’s library (an idea that Disney, obviously, embraced). Food, clothing, and jewels are magically provided for her. When Beauty moves in, a troupe of performing monkeys and a chorus of talking parrots become her servants. While the transformation of the prince’s servants into household objects was a Disney innovation, the castle in the original story is enchanted in its own delightful way. The new film borrows a few additional elements from the book - for example, Belle sets the plot in motion when she asks her father to bring her a rose, and he angers the Beast by attempting to pluck it from the castle garden. Over time, she sees past the Beast’s looks, and they fall in love, thus breaking the spell that turned him into a hideous creature and restoring him to his former appearance as a human prince. The Disney animated film takes all of its basic story elements from the novel: A virtuous village girl (Beauty, translated literally into the name “Belle” by Disney) agrees to become a prisoner in a castle owned by the mysterious Beast, in exchange for the Beast setting her father free.
I took a look at the original novel (specifically this gorgeous new illustrated edition from MinaLima) to see which parts of Beauty and the Beast’s story survived intact, and which details (including some very un-Disney incest and seduction subplots) have fallen by the wayside over the past two-and-half centuries. La Belle et la Bête inspired both the 1991 Disney film and the 2017 remake, which pays homage to the original writer by naming Belle’s village “Villeneuve.” As always, Disney has taken some major liberties with the source material - which is for the best, as Villeneuve’s story goes in some pretty twisted directions. While similar folktales have been kicking around for thousands of years, the story that most readers know comes directly from a novel by French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, first published in 1740. Potts sings that Beauty and the the Beast is a “tale as old as time.” But it’s not quite as old as fans might imagine.
Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, shown here in a new edition illustrated MinaLima and published by HarperCollins
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