Beauty and the Beast

The prince tells Beauty what circumstances led to his being cursed as a beast. His father died before he was born, and a fairy helped his mother raise him. When the kingdom was attacked, the queen left the prince in the fairy’s care to go into battle. Rather than being gone for a year, as she expected, the queen is gone for 15 years. During this time, the fairy’s feelings for the prince change from motherly to romantic, and she wants to marry him. Not wanting the arrangement, the prince argues that he can’t make such a decision without his mother’s approval, so he and the fairy set out to find his mother.

They arrive in time to help his mother end the war, and upon returning home, the fairy tells the queen that she’ll marry the prince. Neither the queen nor the prince wants this, and the fairy is outraged by their decision. She transforms him into the Beast, cursing him to be stupid and horrible until a young girl agrees to marry him of her own free will, and until this condition is met, he’ll “remain an object of horror to thyself and to all who behold thee” (139).