Symbolism In Beauty And The Beast

Throughout history, the use of subliminal messaging has been highly prevalent within various forms of media consumed by the human race. Using it allows authors to influence their political or societal viewpoint through implicit methods. Even stories as rudimentary as those produced for the entertainment of children, contain hidden messages deeply imbedded within them. Marxist theory, the analysis of the role of politics, money and power within literary works, allows readers to examine principles promoted by the author; these can be especially demonstrated in Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast. These themes are exemplified through the bourgeoisie mindset of the elder sisters, the proletariat mentality of Beauty and the direct influence of wealth on the prominence of the merchant.

The story of the Beauty and the Beast is well known amongst all ages. Though the story they portray in the Disney version is much different than what they have portrayed it in France. La Belle et la Bête has been produced twice, once in 1946 and again in 2014. These two movies tell the same story but in very different ways. The perception of this story has changed between the different time periods.

The film “Snow White and the Huntsman” depicts the journey between the two main characters Snow White and Ravenna the evil Queen. Snow White, who is played by Kristen Stewart for majority of the film, has been locked in her slain father's castle for years. The character is imprisoned by her father’s evil second wife played by Charlize Theron, whose now queen. The Queen also lives in fear of losing of her young appearance and uses the blood of virgins to restore it. She tests the success of this with the well-known mirror on the wall. When the magic mirror reveals that Snow White is the source of her immortality, the queen seeks to kill Snow White. In “Snow White and the Huntsman” many patterns are used like the camera shots of the film, lighting and color. The pattern of camera shots is seen throughout the movie using close ups shots and wide range shots. For example, when Snow White fled from the castle and is chased by the Queen’s horsemen into the Dark Forest, there are close up shots of medieval like armor enforcing the idea that the film is not in modern day and the action of the film will be done with weapons like swords and axes. Close up shots of Snow White and Ravenna dictates who is in power and who is not. The shots show Snow White wearing peasant’s clothing, whereas the Queen wears jewelry, expensive clothes and a crown. Wide range shots are shown in film with vast plains, castles and battles’ giving a sense of realism to the setting. Lighting is another pattern

In every society there are rebels that oppose what the majority thinks is normal. Many of these people seek shelter in nature. In Jon Krakauer’s novel Into the Wild, Krakauer uses symbolism to show Chris McCandless’s struggle between society and nature. Chris sets out into the Alaskan wilderness in an attempt to escape civilization and find himself, knowing that at some point he will need to rejoin society. His trip to Alaska ended up being his last and when going through Chris’s belongings, the rescuers found a diary that revealed some of Chris’s thoughts.

Throughout the novel Bless the Beasts and Children, by Glendon Swarthout, symbolism is used frequently to show a weakness in a character or to fulfill a purpose in the novel. The most apparent weaknesses in the bedwetters was their need for radios to help them sleep. The hats portrayed each characters personality and background in some cases. Also, The Box Canyon Boys Camp is in itself a symbol representing American society in general.

“Maybe ... maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us”(William Golding). In the novel Lord of The Flies, William Golding exhibits the symbolism and representation of the beast. The beast represents the norm of society and how most citizens are conceived to evil. As the novel progresses, the reader's perspective of the beast transforms from a possibly harmful animal into to a representation of human civilization and how humans are ignorant and oblivious when it becomes survival of the fittest. The concept of the beast changes significantly during the novel from first the beast on land, then to the beast in the air and finally to the beast within the kids themselves.

If great writers are able to escape the influences of their era and write in a timeless fashion, then Jeanne Marie LePrince de Beaumont is certainly not a great writer. Beaumont wrote Beauty and the Beast in eighteenth-century France during the reign of Louis XV. It was a time when the enormous bourgeoisie population was slowly growing in independent wealth, yet remained grossly overtaxed and starved. These peasants were systematically excluded from the aristocracy and the workings of government. France was a stronghold of the dying feudal-influenced monarchy system, in which the king declared himself an absolute monarch with the divine right to rule as

Once upon a time… These four short words almost immediately conjure up a vivid childhood memory for most people. For ages and all across the world, people have all been told some sort of fairytale as a child. From “Lon PoPo” in China to “Mufaro’s Daughters” in

“Beauty and The Beast” is a classic well known romantic Disney movie that depicts the gender role of men and women in society. The film is based upon a smart young female protagonist named Belle who is imprisoned by a self-centered young prince after he has been turned into a beast. They both learn to love each other in the end and throughout the film there are several examples shown portraying the roles of gender. In the film the main characters Gaston and the Beast portray themselves as rude, conceited and more important than the woman even though the main character Belle is a woman whom is considered odd, yet smart, and unrelated to most women in society.

Bruno Bettelheim, he analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology, which is represented in his works of The Uses of Enchantment. Beaumont’s story of Beauty and the Beast is where the first discovery of Beauty’s problem was identified as the Oedipal complex. The Oedipal complex is a child’s desire to have a sexual relation with the parent of the opposite sex, but it is repressed deep in the mind. Beauty in Beauty and the Beast has a special bond of affection with her father; there is the problem that arises within this complex that what if she were to be stuck at the stage of development and never outgrow it. Within the fairy tale written by Jeanne-Marie Beaumont there is the representation of the period where she begins to transfer the affection to someone else. An analysis of Bettelheim’s theory of the Oedipal complex reveals psychological problems of growing up in the written fairy tale and Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

The first allegation against “Beauty and the Beast” stated the film illustrated women who read books as peculiar. Belle visits the library in town, and the librarian asks, “Finished already?” and Belle says, “got anything new?” The librarian then says, “not since yesterday,” with a chuckle, and then he offers Belle a book she is fond of. This scene does not send the message to children that women should not read. The librarian encourages, not discourages Belle to read. The documentary looked way too far into this scene. There is nothing offensive and degrading in the scene directed at Belle to imply that women whom read are

Belle was kind to the Beast, and then she found her prince. It took courage to look into the eyes of someone that took away everything and see the good.

       Schmookler’s vision is the challenge of healing this dangerous insatiable civilization has many dimensions – Historical, Psychological and Spiritual.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane, a deep, twisted play by Martin McDonagh, is a symbolic work of art. The symbols within this play, powerful as they may be, do not jump out at the reader. They are instead embedded into the simplest objects and the relationship of the main characters. Martin McDonagh portrays his symbols with such an ironic eloquence; the dark, powerful symbols are inextricably linked in such a beautiful way, that once the reader makes the connections, the entire aura of the play changes. From symbols as simple as hot oil and a rocking chair to the mother-daughter relationship of Mag and Maureen, the reader learns more and more about Ireland during its time of troubles.

In “The Faerie Queene”, Spencer Edmund produces an allegory. His intention was to relate England in the 1590s to a mythical land in which each character had a symbolic meaning as well as the events they were undergoing. He lived in an era where Roman Catholicism was replaced with Protestantism and he dedicated himself to unconsciously teach and educate his readers the Catholic Church was corrupted and was the wrong religion to follow. For this reason, he gave each character a common role who would relate to anyone in England and showed the readers how his role in the story symbolized good or evil. The themes he expressed in his books talked about his interpretation in religion, politics, symbolism, and his dedication to make his allegory as influential as possible.