Beauty and the Beast: King of the Wood
She asked for a rose. Her father reaches out to pluck one. Suddenly, a Beast appears, furious, accusing him of theft. The penalty is death. Or the surrender of his daughter. But why such a harsh penalty for plucking a rose? Much has been said - or invented - on the possible meaning of the rose. When the last petal falls, the Beast's fate is sealed eternally. It is the first thing he has learned to love. It symbolises virginity; the plucking of the rose mirrors the deflowering of the daughter; the aristocratic Beast is excercising his droit du seigneur over Beauty, the merchant's child. But why should the plucking of a flower carry such a heavy penalty? And why does the same motif occur in other fairy tales? For example, Rapunzel , in which the father must sacrifice his child as payment for picking herbs from the Witch's garden. One answer may lie in ancient mythology. Most ancient polytheistic religions have s...
