"Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales Literary Elements

"Beauty and the Beast" and Other Tales Literary Elements

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.”

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