ABSTRACT
This chapter examines claim and other facets of her interpretations of fairy tales by using poet, artist, film and theatre director Jean Cocteau’s film of the ancient tale of Beauty and the Beast. The psychological tenets of appearance and reality and their ‘blurring’– the truth ‘behind’ the mask– are deep-seated irrational propositions radiating from human psyches that are weakened in times of general anxiety. The tale of Beauty and the Beast derives specific energies from the irrationality of love in this thematic scenario. Feminists like Betty Hearne, Angela Carter, S. Bryant and Teresa de Lauretis focus on the straightforward abuse of a female in the tale: her subservience and acceptance of the monster-turned-Prince as her husband, saving him in terms of an archetypal analysis, at least, from loss in his animality and masculinity.
