Comparing Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont's Beauty And The Beast
686 Words3 Pages
In a patriarchal society, men are seen as superior to their female counterparts. Beauty’s lack of ambition and agency paint her as a perfect female candidate of patriarchy. Her role as a submissive and continued loyalty to the men around her, supports the idea that men are meant to be the all-powerful leaders of society. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast, uses a female main character to construe what competent men expect an ideal woman to look and act like. Similarly, in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, women are rewarded for putting mens well being above their own. After saving a young Prince’s life, the Little Mermaid chooses to suffer in return for a chance to become the handsome Prince’s wife. As payment…show more content… When the Little Mermaid realizes that her goal of marriage is thwarted and will die as lifeless sea foam if she doesn’t kill the prince, she chooses to let the Prince live. In return for the Little Mermaid’s extreme loyalty and adoration of the Prince, Anderson rewards her. After she abandons her plot to kill the Prince and throws the knife into water, spiritual beings of the air descend among the Little Mermaid and reward her for saving the Prince’s life. The daughters of the air declare, “You, poor little mermaid, have striven for that with all your heart; you have suffered and endured, and have raised yourself into the world of the spirits of the air. Now, by three hundred years of good deeds, you too can shape for yourself an immortal soul” (Andersen 232). Revision of the text reveals that the only “suffering” the Little Mermaid had to “endure” was at the expense of the Prince’s own well being. Rewarding the Little Mermaid the abundance of sacrifices she made for the man she loves with the chance to “shape for yourself [herself] an immortal soul” illustrates the expectations of women when it comes to the men they love. It is only through a women's sacrifices and suffering that she can prove her love for a man. It is up to her to step forward and do anything she possibly can to ensure a man’s