Since today is a student presentation day, we didn’t have an assigned reading. But Sam and I are presenting today, so I thought I’d write about psychoanalytic critique and Beauty and the Beast.
As a kid, even a kid addicted to Greek mythology, I never put two and two together to realize that Beauty was Psyche and that Beast was Cupid. Looking back on it all now, it seems a bit like a punch in the face. But when dealing with psychoanalytic critique, that point falls by the wayside. Psych critique was first developed by Freud as a form of therapy. The reader is meant to study the underlying tones, and concentrate on the author’s and character’s motives and feelings. We have to focus on the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious mind.
So obviously the conscious decision made by the author was for the story to parallel the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. Why? Well it’s a classic love story, literally a tale as old as time. So its success as a love story is almost a given. But what about the unconscious decisions? Like Belle being left by her father, twice, and then her leaving the Beast? What does the rose really symbolize? We can all speculate, but I think that the author may have had abandonment anxiety.
Its interesting to realize that as kids while watching Beauty and the Beast it seemed as if a simple love story. I never thought to look deeper within the story until now, maybe because I never wanted to find a negative story behind it. I had not known that Beauty and Beast was parallel to the Greek Myth of Cupid and Psyche. After learning the backgrounds into each one of the fairytales we have studied, I feel like I have a better understanding of each story. I understand what the significant characters or items represent, why these stories were written, as well as evidence I would have never thought about, like "What does the rose really symbolize?' I plan on using the conscious and unconscious mind to study some of my favorite Disney fairytales, to better understand the underlying story behind them. I can use the my own interpretations to form a new perspective on the classic love story.
ReplyDeleteI also had that same moment of realization that they were essentially the same story. I'm not sure whether or not the author intended to replicate the story in some way. Maybe they had read on classic mythology or maybe they just made an interesting observation in their surroundings. It could be just pure coincidence, although not likely, that the stories came out similar.
ReplyDeleteAs for Belle's father leaving her, I think you might be right about the abandonment anxiety. Although I don't think the author was completely conscious of it. Psyche was also abandoned in a way in the story, so maybe the author was just putting a spin on the story to make it more suited for that time period. Back to abandonment anxiety. I think it's a very interesting notion, and I'm glad you brought it up. Abandonment is such a common theme that we don't realize sometimes, and I didn't notice it until you said something. It's a theme present in many fairy tales like "Hansel and Gretel" or one could argue that the death of a parent was also abandonment of the child. There were many deaths of parents, in fact, the stories usually all began that way.