Question & Quotation Week 1: Jerry Griswold, Among

the Critics
11 April 2015

Question
If Beaumont was truly trying to express the oedipal complex Beauty was
facing in the fairy tale, what would have prompted her to do so?
The text discussed how Freud believe that this complex is quite common and
something that most children experience for a short period of time growing up. This
concept is something that Ive never come across before even though I try to keep
myself quite educated in various aspects of sex and sexuality regardless of how
taboo. I think answer this question would help to under Bettelheims reasoning a
little bit more. The two other theories presented seemed to have a bit more
compelling evidence and Bettelheims theory seemed more of a way to create
controversy by trying to connect a taboo subject to a beloved fairy tale. It may be
possible that having more background about Beaumont and the culture of France at
the time could possibly help explain if there would have been anything to even give
Beaumont the idea to embed this hidden message.

Quotation
To support his diagnosis of Beautys oedipal difficulties, Bettelheim points to the
young womans special connections with her father. First, while her sisters go out to
parties and are concerned with courtship, Beauty shuns this kind of romantic life
and prefers to remain at home with her father. And second, while here sisters are
eager to marry, Beauty twice turns down suitors saying she wishes to stay longer
with her father. pg. 301

This quote was difficult for me to understand as it didnt seem to make a strong
case for Bettelheims theory that Beauty was dealing with an oedipal complex. The
reasons listed in this quote all seemed quite innocent and normal and didnt
indicate any types of incestuous relations between Beauty and her father. Maybe
interactions between fathers and daughters were much different during the time of
Beaumonts writing and this could possibly explain for why Bettelheim felt these
examples helped to illustrate his point. It might be necessary to learn more about
the social situations of the time period in order to better understand Bettelheims
argument.