Beauty and the Beast

This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Beauty and the Beast" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( October 2025 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) Villeneuve's original version A widowed merchant lives in a mansion in a city with his twelve children: six sons and six daughters.

All his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest , Beauty, is the loveliest. Beauty is also kind and pure of heart; her elder sisters, in contrast, are cruel, selfish, and jealous of Beauty. The merchant and his children become poor when their house burns down, and his ships are lost. The family of thirteen is forced to move to a small cottage in the countryside and work for a living.

While Beauty makes a firm resolution to adjust to rural life with a cheerful disposition, her sisters do not and mistake her determination for stupidity. Two years later, the merchant hears that one of his trade ships has returned. Before leaving to retrieve it, and possibly their fortune, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. His oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, and the finest dresses possible as they think that his wealth has returned.

Beauty asks for nothing but her father to return home safely, but when he insists on buying her a present, she is satisfied with the promise of a rose. When he arrives to the port to see his ship the merchant is dismayed to learn that his colleagues have already sold the cargo, thus leaving him penniless and unable to buy his daughters' presents. During his trip back home the merchant becomes lost in a vicious snowstorm. Seeking shelter, he comes upon a castle surrounded by lifelike statues.

Seeing that no one is home, the merchant sneaks in and finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him by the castle's invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there. The next morning, he is about to leave when he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. The merchant quickly plucks the loveliest rose he can find.

He is then confronted by a hideous "Beast" who tries to kill him for stealing his most precious possession even after accepting his hospitality. The merchant begs to be let go, revealing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him go, but only if he brings one of his daughters back to live with the Beast instead. He makes it clear that she must agree while under no illusions about her predicament.

The merchant is upset, but accepts this condition for the sake of his own life. The Beast sends him on his way with wealth, jewels, and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, and stresses that he must not lie to his daughters. Upon arriving home, the merchant hands Beauty the rose she requested and informs her that it had a terrible price, before relaying what had happened during his absence. Her brothers say that they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, while his older daughters refuse to leave and place blame on Beauty, urging her to right her own wrong.

The merchant dissuades them, forbidding his children from ever going near the Beast. Beauty willingly decides to go to the Beast's castle, moving her father who remembers a Romani fortune-teller's prophecy about his youngest daughter making his household lucky. Once they arrive at the castle, the Beast receives Beauty with great ceremony. The merchant is sent home with a reward.

The Beast gives Beauty lavish clothing, food and entertainment along with animal servants. He visits her each evening to ask her how she is doing. Although they converse at length, he seems unable to express himself well, leading her to assume he is not intelligent. Every night he asks Beauty to let him sleep with her: and she refuses.

After each proposal Beauty dreams of a handsome stranger who is imprisoned in the castle, along with an apparition of a fairy who tells her not to be deceived by appearances. For several months Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's castle. Her feelings for the man in her dreams and her gratitude toward the Beast come into conflict. When the Beast asks her what is wrong, she pleads homesickness and he sadly allows her to leave, warning her that if she does not return within two months he will die of a broken heart.

Beauty agrees to this and is presented with an enchanted ring, which allows her to wake up in her family's new home in an instant. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well-fed and dressed in finery, and their old jealousy quickly flares when their suitors' gazes turn to Beauty, even though she bestows lavish gifts on them. Her brothers do all they can to prevent her from going back to his castle, and she reluctantly agrees to stay longer. When the two months have passed, she envisions the Beast dying alone on the castle grounds and hastens to return despite her brothers' resolve to prevent her from doing so.

Once she is back in the castle, Beauty's fears are confirmed as she finds the Beast near death in a cave on the grounds. Seeing this, Beauty is distraught, realizing that she loves him. She fetches water from a nearby spring, which she uses to resuscitate him. The next night when the Beast proposes, Beauty agrees to marry him.

The sky is lit up by a magical fireworks show. That night he goes to bed with her, falling into an enchanted sleep as soon as he lies down. When Beauty wakes up next to him the next morning she finds that the Beast has transformed into the unknown man from her dreams. Beauty learns that the Beast is a prince.

Just then, the Fairy who has been appearing to Beauty in her dreams arrives with the Prince's mother, the Queen. The Queen's joy falters when she learns that Beauty is a lowly merchant's daughter.