I present in my master's thesis the commonalities and differences of seven versions of Beauty and the Beast. The core of the comparative analysis, done especially by means of comparing characters, are ideas of love, beauty, marriage, healthy familial relationships and beastliness, and their changes though time. These works have been chosen due to their popularity or their diversity, demonstrating development of our way of thinking about the aforementioned topics. I analyse The Tale of Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius, the folk fairytale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the Beauty and the Beast fairytales (by de Villeneuve and de Beaumont), the eponymous films by Jean Cocteau and Disney Studios, and Beauty and the Beast or what happened to Danica D.? by Ivo Svetina. These stories portray love as a maddening force as well as an origin of power to transform oneself. Female beauty can at times be a curse, but it can also be an advantage (at obtaining a partner). Physical beauty is occasionally the most important character attribute; at other times the focus of the stories is the inner beauty of the Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is diverse enough to contain messages of the power of empathy and love as well as a call for a pragmatic decision to marry a kind rich man, regardless of his apperance. Adaptations have therefore exposed our need for ceaseless questioning of timeless questions.
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