Andrea Gonzalez

ILS 2390

Professor Wolfe

1/23/2020

Essay 2: The Story of Belle.

The popular fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” has been told many times and even by

different authors. The tale tells the story of a very arrogant prince and his castle servants, who

are cursed by an enchantress. The curse turns him into a hideous Beast until he learns how to

love and be loved in return. After trapping her father in his castle, he meets Belle, a smart yet

stubborn young lady who with her kindness and patience achieves to draw the cold-hearted Beast

out of his isolation, as well as to teach him the meaning of love. The story teaches us many

valuable lessons. One of them is that selfishness and arrogance are not good traits to have as a

person. Also, it teaches us that true love is very powerful, as well as how we should value more a

person’s inner characteristics, such as kindness and intelligence rather that physical appearance.

From this tale we also learned that being different is not a bad thing and that we should embrace

those things that make us different. Lastly, from this tale we learned to never stop learning and to

push ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to learn from new experiences.

Thanks to this story and its most famous adaptation from Disney, many little girls all over

the world have met Belle. Belle is an open-minded, free-thinker, and creative young lady who

has goals and aspirations beyond marriage and romance. Belle, since very young, was taught

many futuristic ideals by her father who can be described as a man before his time. This ideals

made Belle think differently from all the girls she knew and interacted with, whose only
aspirations were marrying into a good family, having kids, and taking care of their husband and

their home. Differently from the societal standards for women from her time that dictated that

only men should be educated, and women where only meant to be ignorant housewives; Belle

was a thinker and sought to learn and read about different worlds. Her neighbors found her love

for knowledge very odd; we can see this when Gaston expresses how it’s not right for a woman

to read, stating that reading might lead women to think. Belle was an intelligent, independent,

and forward-thinking young woman, who was able to break the gender stereotypes of society in

her time with her adventurous and nonconformist personality.

While Belle can be described by many as a feminist character who broke gender

stereotypes, many others might argue that she is just not feminist enough. In the story, Belle is

pictured as an intelligent and feminist heroine who was very different from her sweet, singing-

loving, mop-wielding precedents. However, after the Beast is transformed into a prince, she ends

up forgetting all her goals and aspirations and melting back into the role of a wife. I have decided

to write a sequel to the “Beauty and the Beast” narrating what feminist Belle accomplished after

marrying the Beast:

After saving the Beast from the raging town leaded by Gaston and breaking the spell that

transformed him, Belle married the prince trapped into the Beast’s body, Prince Adam. Many

people in the town thought that marrying into a wealthy family would make Belle finally forget

about her forward-thinking ideals and conform to her role as a wife. However, since it was one

of her most precious dreams to help other women to become educated like her; Belle thought of

using her position as a tool to help other women and young girls, who like her, had a thirst for

knowledge.
 In the beginning, Prince Adam was doubtful of her progressive ideas and argued that

society’s standards where there for a reason and shouldn’t be changed. He argued that many men

would not like their daughters and wives to be educated and knowledgeable. He put Belle as an

example and the opinion her neighbors had of her. He brought up how in her town used to call

her weird and crazy, for the simple fact of her reading books; and ended his response by saying

that no father or husband would want those opinions to be said about their daughters. His words

made Belle extremely sad. She couldn’t believe that the man she loved wouldn’t support her

dreams.

After seeing how upset this made his wife, Prince Adam deeply thought for days about

his wife’s ideas and how to help her. He came to the conclusion that the way he fell in love with

Belle was because of her intelligence and ideas, as well as that many men would also find a

smart and knowledgeable girl to be attractive. He decided to make amends with his wife by

creating the school she dreamed about and surprise her. Prince Adam took funds from the

kingdom’s treasure and gave orders to the royal architect to start constructing a small school.

Belle was so happy to hear the news. There was finally going to be a place where women and

women from the neighboring towns and villages were offered an education, just like the men

were already being educated in an all-men school where women weren’t allowed to attend. She

added to her husband’s project by buying all the necessary tools: books, papers, pencils, chairs

and tables, as well as a little board that the teacher would use. Belle was very happy to finally

make one of her, and surely many other girl’s, dream come true. However, once the school was

finalized, she ran into the first challenges: Who was going to be the teacher? And what were they

going to teach them? Belle thought about it for days, and being the creative woman she was, she

came up with a plan on what was important for the students who attended the school to learn.
The women were first going to be taught how to read and write, since those are the basics to any

education; and after they know how to read and write properly they would be educated in basic

math and science, and even a bit of history. Belle had a plan on the subjects that were going to be

taught in the school but still couldn’t figure out how to solve the missing teacher situation. She

talked with her husband about her frustration on not finding a teacher for the school and the idea

he gave her was equally great and surprising. Prince Adam told his wife, that since she was

already educated in all those subjects, she could be the first teacher the school would have; and

after someone showed enough knowledge on all the subjects taught, they could become the next

teacher and she could go back to her royal duties. Belle’s dream had finally come true, the school

was already completed and with all the necessary tools it needed to start running, and more

importantly, it had its first teacher, Belle. Belle was so excited; she gave the order to spread the

word to all the neighboring towns and villages that the school was completed and when the first

day of school was going to be.

At first, recruiting women to attend her school was not working out so well. Just like her

husband’s initial ideals about how women shouldn’t have the need to be educated, the men in the

neighboring towns and villages had the same thoughts about this. As word of the new school

started to spread, girls from those towns and villages were intrigued by it. They would sneak out

of their town and attend lessons in Belle’s school in secret. These girls would return home each

day more knowledgeable, which made their families notice something different about their

daughters. When discovered, many of the girls were punished and forbidden to go back to the

school. As Belle started to notice the challenges some of her students were facing to attend her

school, she asked her husband to help her. Prince Adam decided to plan trips to the neighboring

towns and villages in order to hold a town meeting with the girls’ families about the advantages
of an education. He started by explaining how teaching the women math and hoe to read and

write would ultimately result in a better future. Putting Belle as an example, the Prince talked

about how Belle was also a girl from a small village that because of her intelligence and

kindness was able to marry into royalty and a good family. Also, he stated that by girls being

able to learn math and science, this would open employment possibilities for the girls, resulting

in more income coming into the household. This sparked the interest of many men and their

families, since their dream was to have their daughters to marry into a good family and be able to

support themselves after they pass away.

The Prince’s advocacy for the girls’ education was very successful and inspired many

families to voluntarily enroll their daughters and wives in Belle’s school. This resulted in many

girls and women gaining independence and control over their future. Belle’s school opened a

door of many possibilities to the girls who attended. Just like Belle, her students were able to

break their society’s gender roles by taking jobs that were generally performed by men. Belle’s

legacy was remembered by all the women in her time and even inspired many more from future

generations. Belle taught her students to always be creative and to never be afraid to speak their

mind. The most valuable lesson she taught them was to never let a man or society to dictate how

they should act or what they, as women, should do or be.

THE END.