Shaping perspectives through narrative and visual adaptations: a comparative study of Beauty and the Beast

This study examines Beauty and the Beast across three adaptations: Villeneuve’s 1740 original, Beaumont’s 1756 abridgment, and Disney’s 2017 live-action film. Utilizing a New Historicist framework, the paper explores how these versions reflect and negotiate societal norms related to class, gender, and beauty. Villeneuve’s original tale critiques the rigid hierarchies and patriarchal structures of pre-revolutionary France, while Beaumont’s version aligns with Enlightenment ideals of rationality and moral education. Disney’s adaptation, though outwardly feminist, juxtaposes modern ideals of empowerment with traditional romantic structures. By engaging with Hutcheon’s concept of palimpsests, the study underscores how each adaptation layers contemporary cultural anxieties and values over the original narrative, maintaining its core themes while engaging in a dialogic exchange with its predecessors. Through Hutcheon’s dialogic adaptation and Greenblatt’s circulation of social energy, this study reveals how Beauty and the Beast functions as both a mirror to its historical contexts and a dynamic site for cultural negotiation, addressing evolving societal values while preserving core themes. Keywords: Beauty and the Beast, new historicism, adaptations, gender, cultural negotiation, palimpsests