Regarding "Beauty and the Beast"

I love the way that Dr. Sexson is showing us Beauty and the Beast because it exemplifies the reason that I LOVE studying English literature. The connections between new literature and ancient literature are fascinating and we are weaving this web of interconnectedness that, I think, makes every story richer. Being able to trace a story from antiquity to present day is something that I think adds depth to a story. We will never again watch Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast without thinking of Cupid and Psyche or Pride and Prejudice, stories of the Bible and Homeric epic poems. We can then compare and contrast the tales, see how they have changed and how they have stayed the same over time.

I was reading more in that history book I mentioned in an earlier entry, Gail Bederman's Manliness and Civilization, and I found a passage that I think has something to do with the idea of marriage as an act of rape. Bederman is writing about the relationship between men and women where women serve as the object of man's sexual desire while the man is the "sexual selector" who holds the cards in deciding whom he would like to marry. She writes, "Women must return to the...position of sexual selector...man as sexual selector-as rapist-must be abolished" (156). She argues that because man gets the choice in wife (reminder: she is writing about a different time than we live in) he gets to choose based on his sexual attraction, and that no matter her feelings, the marriage will be consummated. This is a slightly different direction than we took it in class because she doesn't discuss the taking of a woman from her family, but, I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

Perhaps this idea that the man has most of the power most of the time is part of the reason that we were saying there seems to be an uneasy relationship between men and women in stories from myth and folk tales....hmmm.