Beautiful Creatures

The novel explores discrimination and ostracization through a supernatural lens. As a magical being, Lena epitomizes what it means to be “other.” Gatlin, fearing her power and how that makes her different from them, harass and exclude her. Lena desperately wants to feel included and achieve normalcy in the chaos of her life. However, Gatlin forces her out of their community because they fear what they cannot understand. In Beautiful Creatures, Lena really does possess the ability to use magic, but magic is also a metaphor for being different.

The novel illustrates how bullying can tear a person down. Lena tells Ethan that she “just want[s] to know what it feels like to be normal” (488). However, Gatlin continues to push her out. Beautiful Creatures echoes elements of Stephen King’s novel Carrie (1974), where a teenaged girl with otherworldly powers is ridiculed at school. Lena, like Carrie White of Carrie, is tormented by the popular girls. Like Carrie, Lena’s anger is reflected by the eruption of her powers, such as when she shatters the windows in her class. Also like in Carrie, the mean kids bully Lena at a dance. In Carrie, a bucket covers Carrie in pig’s blood.