Genre
A fairy tale
Setting and Context
The actions take place in an imaginary country.
Narrator and Point of View
It is third-person narration.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood of the tale is balanced between romantic and tragic; sad events replace each other with happy ones.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Beauty and Beast. The antagonists are Beauty’s sisters who are jealous of their younger sister and wish nothing but evil.
Major Conflict
The main conflict is presented in the very title—the difference between something beautiful and something ugly—but as the title concerns people and their appearances, the conflict of the tale goes deeper and concerns inner beauty and ugliness.
Climax
The climax comes when Beauty realizes that she loves Beast with all her heart and returns to him.
Foreshadowing
The merchant, the father of Beauty, has lost all his fortune and is forced to move to the country with his children. This foreshadows hard times for all of the characters, and especially for Beauty as she is the most concerned.
Understatement
The relationships between brothers and sisters are understated.
Allusions
N/A
Imagery
The images of the palace and beautiful garden around the palace are brightly depicted in the tale.
Paradox
The paradox of the story is that the sisters, while all daughters of the same father, are so different in their characters.
Parallelism
The events taking place in the palace are depicted in parallel with the events taking place in the country at the house of the old merchant.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
“The whole palace echoed.”
