48 pages • 1 hour read
Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary
Beauty convinces her father to part with her at the castle’s gate. She brings Greatheart to the magic stable her father had first encountered and sees to all Greatheart’s needs before finally daring to go into the castle. Scenes and images of a king and his court riding into a forest adorned the arched frame of the front doors. The second half of the scene shows the court emerging from the forest in terror, their horses and other animals attempting to flee. Before she can assess the meaning of the scenes, the doors swing open and a breeze that seems to contain singing voices coaxes her inside. Beauty enters an enormous dining hall, where the breeze urges her to sit at a table covered from end to end with a banquet of exquisite dishes. After eating, she explores the castle, admiring its splendid paintings, tapestries, statues, and more. Eventually she finds a door marked “Beauty’s Room.” On the other side she finds a room fit for a princess, filled with valuables and every comfort and luxury. Best of all, it’s full of books—hundreds of leather-bound volumes.
Beauty is distracted from the books when she sees a bathtub being filled with steaming water by floating china jugs. She heeds the suggestion and takes a bath, after which she finds her clothes have disappeared. The breeze presents her with one fancy, frilly dress after another. Beauty’s refusal of such couture leads to a struggle between her and the breeze, finally resulting in a compromise; a simpler dress than the others, but still one with pearls and golden velvet. Beauty decides to look for the Beast and get the encounter over with. After wandering the castle in search of her captor, she finally finds him sitting in front of a fireplace in a dimly lit room. He introduces himself as the Beast and tells her to call him that. Then he reveals that if her father had returned here alone, he would have been sent on his way, unharmed. Beauty thinks she’s come for no reason then. Beast tells her even if her father had returned safely, her shame at letting him go to what she thought was his death would grow and ruin her peace and happiness, as well as her mind and heart.
Beast assures Beauty no harm will come to her. Beauty asks why he wanted her to come. He explains that he’s lonely and wants companionship. Then he adds that he’s looking for a wife, and asks, “Will you marry me, Beauty?” (118). Panicked, Beauty refuses, running from the room as soon as Beast bids her good night. She gets lost in the castle’s maze of corridors, but as soon as she realizes it, her room appears around the next corner. That night, Beauty can’t sleep. She decides to visit Greatheart in the stables to help her calm her fears, but the bedroom door won’t open; she’s trapped. She bangs at the door, sobbing, until she tires and falls asleep. Just before drifting off, though, she hears two voices in the breeze, talking to each other and expressing sympathy for her.
Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary
In the morning, Beauty feels refreshed and is cheerful again. She finds her favorite breakfast—toast and chocolate—laid out on the fireside table in her room. After eating, Beauty goes to see Greatheart, and together they explore the castle grounds. After lunch—also in her room—Beauty takes Greatheart for a gallop, riding far yet never coming to a wall or hedge delineating the end of the castle grounds. Once Beauty has put Greatheart back in the stable, Beast approaches her. Beauty, attempting to be polite, suggests they walk together a bit. They enter the magical rose garden Beauty’s father spoke of, and watch the sun set, an activity that will become a daily ritual for the two of them. Beast asks permission to join Beauty for dinner, saying she’s mistress of the castle and anything she asks for, within his power, will be hers. He eventually notices the wounds on Beauty’s hands from banging on her door the night before. When she explains the wounds, Beast admits he gave orders for Beauty’s bedroom door to be locked at night, and gives only a vague explanation.
Further discussion reveals Beast used magic to hurry along the growth of the roses Beauty planted at home, though he says it was difficult from a distance. Beauty notices Beast speaking to the castle’s enchanted lanterns in an unfamiliar language. When she asks about it, Beast says the enchantments have been “dragged from their world into ours” and have been slow to learn the local language (134). However, he’s assigned two “handmaids” to Beauty’s care who can understand her (134). During dinner, Beauty learns that Beast is about 200 years old. Before she retires for the night, Beast again asks her to marry him. Beauty again says no.
In the following weeks, Beauty develops a routine to fill her time. Her main activities include: reading; studying Greek, Latin, and French; riding Greatheart; walking with Beast in the garden at sunset; eating dinner in Beast’s company; and refusing Beast’s nightly marriage proposal. She misses her family terribly, but otherwise learns to be “cautiously happy” in her new life (139). She also notices some ways in which her presence is changing the castle. When she first came, for example, there were no birds to be seen or heard at the castle or in the forest around it. Beauty begins leaving birdseed on her window ledge, however, and eventually has regular bird visitors.
Beauty’s outdoor routine is precluded one morning by steady rain, so Beast offers to show her the parts of the castle she hasn’t seen yet. They come to a portrait gallery, containing paintings Beast identifies as the family that has owned this land for thousands of years. The final portrait in the long row is of a handsome young man. Beauty senses something terrible and godlike about his extraordinary beauty, and feels ashamed of her own ugliness in comparison. Next, Beast shows Beauty the library, which is bigger than her entire house in the city had been. She begins reading the books’ titles and finds she’s never heard of many of them or their authors. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Screwtape Letters, and Kim are among the unfamiliar titles. Beast admits that “[m]ost of these books haven’t been written yet” (147), but assures her they will be. Feeling closer to Beast after their time in the library, Beauty insists he join her while she visits Greatheart, though he’s told her other animals dislike and fear him. Greatheart is indeed terrified at first, but at Beauty’s encouragement, he’s able to approach Beast and get over his fear. That night Beauty overhears the two voices of the breeze talking about her, though they think she can’t hear them. She learns that they want to help her understand the situation, but they’ve been bound to silence. Beauty falls asleep wondering what she’s supposed to understand.
Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary
By summertime, Beauty and Beast have made a tradition of reading to each other. Beauty realizes that although she spends several hours with Beast every day, she always looks forward to their next meeting. In fact, she begins to feel regret—or at least guilt—for continuing to refuse Beast’s nightly marriage proposals. On the other hand, homesickness overwhelms her. She thinks it would be dishonorable to ask Beast to let her leave so soon—four months—after arriving, but she does tell him how she feels. In answer, Beast says, “I cannot let you go” (166). Beauty infers that he means ever, and faints from the horror of imagining an interminable future there. When she wakes up she’s lying in his arms, which angers her, and she runs from him. That night Beauty sleeps only fitfully. She dreams of the beautiful man in the portrait.
The next morning, Beauty’s mood begins to lift. She realizes she can hear the voices in the breeze talking quite clearly, where before she’d only ever heard snatches of their conversation as she drifted off to sleep. This time they talk on and on, and she hears all of it. They refer to a fiendish magician that took off after setting his spells and enchantments on the castle. They also say these enchantments forbade the presence of birds around the castle, yet now birds often come to perch on Beauty’s windowsill. Beauty wonders if this means the enchantments on the castle are weakening. Through their conversation, Beauty learns that their names are Lydia and Bessie.
When Beauty realizes she can sense if Beast is nearby, on top of now being able to hear Lydia and Bessie, she describes these changes to him. Beast calls it a “new clarity of perception” (175). He explains that her lack of trust in him has kept her from being able to see anything in that enchanted place that she can’t perceive in terms of the world she knows. He became hopeful that would change when she was able to see the books from the future in the library, yet other things remained invisible to her. Beast tells Beauty that in the few moments after fainting the night before, she’d clung to him, feeling safe and content, before coming to and running away in panic. Those moments of sympathy toward him caused the change in her perception. As a result, she finds a new depth to her sight, marked by a crystalline quality to the air and colors she’s never known. That evening Beauty witnesses the most stunning sunset she’s ever seen.
Before dinner, Lydia and Bessie force Beauty into a stately gown, high-heeled shoes, and ornate jewelry against her will. Beauty refuses to leave her room, and has to explain the reason to Beast through the door. When she does, he lets out a terrifying roar, and Beauty finds the hated dress gone and a much plainer one in its place. She comes out of her room, takes his arm, and they go down to dinner.
Part 3, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Details in these chapters give further hints as to the story’s setting, but still do not specify when or where it takes place. Beauty’s comment about her knowledge of the French language—“and my French, which had always been weak, had been reduced to near nonexistence” (137)—suggests the novel is not set in France, despite other versions of the fairy tale approximating a French setting. When Beast tells Beauty the books she’s never heard of in his library will be written in the future, it offers a clue about when the story takes place. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, for example, was published in 1892. Thus, Beauty’s story must take place before then. Other aspects of the setting in these chapters relate to the castle and its grounds. Beauty’s first observations of certain details in the castle may not seem relevant to the overall plot, like the gray stone of the castle’s towers and battlements or the absence of clock and mirrors throughout the interior. However, these observations establish an initial state. The castle’s subsequent transformation will develop thematic ideas about Outward Appearance Versus Inner Beauty.
Before she even enters the castle, Beauty puts off the fearful event by taking an excessive amount of time on Greatheart’s care in the stable. This advances the concept of fear as a source of conflict. Though Beauty eventually pushes through her fear to enter the castle, it still impedes her perception. She comes to understand this only when her fear and mistrust subside enough to give her a new clarity of perception. Beast explains the connection to her: “a little strangeness leaked through to you, your first night here, when you looked out your window. It frightened you—I quite understand this; it used to frighten me too—and you’ve avoided seeing anything else since” (177-78). Beauty’s early thoughts about the Beast’s motive inform an understanding of her fear. “The Beast had said that no harm would come to me, but how did I know?” (103), she asks herself. She can’t fathom what he wants from her, if not to harm her, because he “was only a Beast” (103). Thus McKinley establishes Beauty’s reliance on Beast’s physical form in trying to understand him and his intentions, setting up a contrast between what she sees when she learns to look below the surface. Her focus on physical appearance is emphasized again when Beauty compares herself to “King Cophetua’s beggar-maid” (105). Ironically, Beauty decides they actually have little in common because the beggar-maid “had a king in love with her, because of her innate nobility, and a beauty that sparkled even through her rags” (103). Beauty cannot yet recognize how much the story resembles her own because she cannot see her own inner beauty.
Beast reveals an aspect of his character that relates to the Outward Appearance Versus Inner Beauty theme during his first dialogue with Beauty. She asks if he can see the future, and he answers, “Not exactly, […] But I can see you” (115). His response implies he sees more than her physical appearance, which anyone can see. He’s predicted that she would not have let her father go alone to his death, meaning he sees Beauty’s character; her selflessness and courage. Like Beauty, Beast is able to see inner beauty in others, though not yet in himself. He cannot bear to have mirrors in the castle, or even to look in the still water of a pond, which might show his reflection. The ironic ability to see past physical appearance in others—when he can’t do the same for himself—is reinforced when he tells Beauty her nickname suits her well. She disagrees: “I assure you I am very plain” (117). By this argument, Beauty reveals a similar inability to recognize her own inner radiance. Beast develops the theme further by asking, “since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?” (130). This logic questions the concept of beauty as an objective quality governed only by looks and defined by arbitrary aesthetic standards. Beast—and through him McKinley—suggests instead that beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder. Furthermore, he suggests character attributes, not looks, are what make one beautiful.
McKinley’s narrative style in these chapters is characterized by personification, literary allusions, and dialogue. Personification often depicts enchantments, allowing invisible characters to take on personalities though they lack human form. Lydia and Bessie first appear to Beauty in the form of a personified breeze: “a little singing breeze swept out through the doors and curled around me. I could almost hear voices in it, but when I tried to listen I lost them” (105). This technique of personification enables McKinley to portray a setting imbued with magic in a way readers can conceptualize and as Beauty perceives it. Beauty’s perception and character also inform the prevalence of literary allusions in the text. She’s defined by her intellectual passions and pursuits. These are epitomized by her love of reading. Allusions to Norse and Greek mythology, Homeric epics, and Middle English classics, among others, emphasize Beauty’s intellectual attributes as a form of inner beauty. Dialogue is also used effectively as a characterization technique, as well as a tool for developing plot and theme. One particular dialogue in this section, however, is less effective. McKinley attempts to develop the main premise of the enchantment by conveying background information through Lydia and Bessie’s conversation. The result is known as forced exposition—when one character tells another what they both already know in order to inform the reader. The following excerpt conveys information that is meaningful to Beauty, but in a way Lydia and Bessie would be unlikely to speak to each other:
Oh dear, she missed us, I knew she would, we’ve always been here before. But we couldn’t leave him; I haven’t seen him in such a temper since—oh, years and years. I’m always afraid he may do himself a mischief when he’s in that state—not that she has anything to fear—but we’ve always stood by him in such moods, it seems safer, we don’t really help anything but our presence is a distraction, I think, and anything is better than nothing at all (171-72).
Forced exposition sounds inauthentic and creates a jarring effect. This example of it is inconsistent with McKinley’s overall writing style in Beauty; a rare exception to an otherwise polished and engaging narrative voice.
Unlock all 48 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Robin McKinley
