48 pages • 1 hour read
Robin McKinleyBeauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary
By the time autumn arrives, Beauty has been at the castle for over six months. She hasn’t yet figured out the mystery she overheard Lydia and Bessie talking about, and she’s learned nothing knew from listening in on their conversations while continuing to pretend she can’t hear them. Ever since Beast said he couldn’t let her leave, Beauty no longer lets herself think about the future. She realizes—if only subconsciously—that she no longer wants to leave if it means not being able to return to the castle; to Beast. One night she has a dream about her family, one so vivid it’s as if she’s actually seeing them rather than dreaming about them. In it, she sees her family having breakfast together. They talk about the roses Beauty planted, which never need pruning and last exactly one month from the time they’re cut. Her father says he dreams of Beauty often. In his dreams he sees Beauty changing, but agrees when Hope says the dreams, like the roses, offer comfort. Then Hope’s daughter, Mercy, asks when Beauty is coming home, and Beauty wakes.
When she tells Beast about it the next morning, he says he sends Roderick these dreams of Beauty. He knows the dreams bring the family comfort, he admits, because he can see them. Beast shows Beauty a small table covered with a plate of what looks like nephrite. In the tabletop, she sees Grace and Hope talking about a young minister who wants to marry Grace. Grace tells Hope she still loves only Robbie, even after six years and no word of his fate. Hope encourages Grace to marry the minister, Mr. Lawrey, anyway. As she watches, Beauty wonders aloud what happened to Robbie. The image changes, and she sees Robbie arriving in the city’s harbor, telling people who he is and how troubles on his journey kept him away six years. She sees him asking where he can find Mr. Huston just before the vision dissolves. Anxious for Grace to know of Robbie’s return, Beauty asks Beast to send the family a dream, informing them. Beast says he’ll try but doesn’t expect them to believe it’s more than a dream. Beauty begs Beast to let her go to her family, to tell them about Robbie and let them know she’s okay so they won’t worry anymore. She swears she’ll come back right afterward and never leave again. Beast acquiesces. He gives Beauty a rose that will droop and die after one week. This will be her sign that he’s dying, Beast says, for he can’t live without her now.
Beauty departs on Greatheart immediately. They gallop most of the way, arriving home at twilight where Beauty has a joyful reunion with her family. Standing next to her sisters that evening, Beauty realizes for the first time that she’s grown about seven inches taller. Hope says enchantment agrees with Beauty, telling her she’s never looked prettier. Things have gone well for the family, Beauty learns. Her father and Gervain have grown their respective blacksmith and carpentry businesses. They bought another horse, which they named Cider, and a dairy cow named Rosie. Beauty, in turn, tells her family of her time in the castle. She feels disloyal trying to explain her positive regard for Beast, since they think of him as the ogre that took her away from them. She realizes, while trying, that she loves him.
Beauty finds her saddlebags fuller than she’d packed them. It turns out Beast has magically filled them with gifts for her family: fancy gowns; jewelry; and fur-lined cloaks and gloves for Grace and Hope; as well as fine clothes for Roderick, Gervain, and the twins. Later, Ger will find new brass bellows have magically replaced his old ones. By the time they all go to bed, Beauty hasn’t yet told Grace about Robbie. She promises herself she’ll tell her the next day. Before falling asleep, she contemplates how being back home has made her realize she loves Beast.
Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary
Beauty continues to procrastinate over telling Grace about Robbie. In part, she’s hesitant to admit how she knows he’s returned. She also worries the news will disturb Grace’s precarious state of mind. Beauty gets to meet Pat Lawrey, the minister that wants to marry Grace. She decides he’s nothing special and that Grace shouldn’t marry him, which pushes her to finally announce Robbie’s return on her third evening at home. Grace faints when she hears the news. After coming to, she suggests they invite Robbie to come stay with them so he can rest after his difficult voyage and regain his strength. Grace’s excitement persuades her father to send the invitation.
Though Beauty initially plans to leave the morning of her seventh day at home, her family says it hasn’t been a full week and convinces her to stay one more day. On her final night there, she dreams of being in the castle. She searches tirelessly but can’t find Beast anywhere. She finally does find him, appearing lifeless, just before she wakes. At this point she realizes the enchanted rose Beast gave her is almost dead. Beauty gathers her things and leaves immediately with Greatheart. They enter the forest, but hours elapse and they can’t find the path to the castle. Beauty drinks from the stream and finds the water tastes different; bitter. Twelve hours go by and darkness falls by the time Beauty finally finds the road to the castle. When she reaches the castle, she finds its magic is weak, almost gone. Doors don’t open and lanterns don’t flicker to life. Corridors don’t adjust to guide her, remaining instead a maze of convoluted passageways, halls, and rooms.
Just as in her dream, Beauty eventually finds Beast nearly dead. She says to him, “My love, wake up” (236). He does, and Beauty says she’ll never leave again. She tells Beast she loves him and wants to marry him. Suddenly she experiences “a wild explosion of light, as if the sun had burst” (238). A great din arises, of cathedral bells, cheering crowds, and cannon fire. When the commotion subsides and Beauty looks around her, she sees a man where Beast had been. He’s alarmingly handsome, but when he speaks she recognizes Beast’s voice. The man says he is the Beast, and had been under an enchantment that would only lift when “some maiden should love me in spite of my ugliness, and promise to marry me” (239). Looking closer, Beauty realizes he’s the man whose portrait she’d found so haunting. Her first thought is that he’s too beautiful now to marry someone dull and drab like her. When she expresses this, however, Beast brings her to a mirror in the hall. Beauty finds herself again in the fancy princess dress and jewelry Lydia and Bessie had tried to force upon her once before. She almost doesn’t recognize herself in the beautiful woman the mirror reflects.
Beast says the castle’s inhabitants will be waking from their enchantments soon, and Beauty’s family will be arriving. They’ll be with Robbie, he says, and suggests a double wedding that afternoon. He shortly amends his suggestion to a triple wedding when they see Melinda accompanying the family as well. Hundreds of people approach the castle behind Beauty’s family, splendidly dressed as if attending a king’s coronation. The crowd gathers in the courtyard, eager to celebrate their restored liege. Beauty realizes she doesn’t know Beast’s human name. He says he no longer remembers it and that Beauty will have to choose one for him. The pair goes to join Beauty’s family amidst a cheering crowd.
Part 3, Chapters 4-5 Analysis
The relevance of dreams within the story becomes more apparent in Chapter 4, when Beauty has a dream of her family so vivid it feels like actually seeing them, rather than dreaming. Small details, like her father’s description of what she was wearing in his dream, help Beauty realize there’s something magical about these dreams. Her discovery that Beast sends her father dreams as a source of comfort for her family shows her how thoughtful Beast is, and how much he shares her values. In fact, he admires her loyalty to them so much that he lets her go to them, even when it may mean his death. The kind of sacrifice Beauty made for her family in going to the castle is similar to the sacrifice Beast is now making for her. These parallel events demonstrate a thematic parallel between familial and romantic relationships and their shared ideals of faithfulness, selflessness, and honor. Roderick’s dreams also hint at Beauty’s progress along a transformative character arc. He notices she’s somehow different in his dreams, though he can’t quite define it: ‘“She’s changing. My dreams are as vivid as ever, but the Beauty I see is different.’ ‘How?’ asked Grace. ‘I don’t know. I wish I did’” (190). He’ll later discover Beauty has grown taller and more beautiful from spending time in a castle without mirrors, where she can focus on what truly matters. Her blossoming outer beauty is a reflection of her inner transformation.
Beauty’s difficulty and sense of disloyalty in trying to convince her family of Beast’s goodness advances an idea of appearance versus truth as a central conflict. The conflict is best represented by a specific form, looks versus character, in the way Beauty and Beast see each other. Perception, in this context, relates to how a person sees—whether they recognize only what’s on the surface or see beyond appearances and recognize the true character underneath. Beauty’s family struggles to believe that Beast is kind and gentle because of his physical form. Her father asks, “You can have—sympathy—for this monster, after what he’s done to you?” (209). Having seen Beast’s kindness, intelligence, and generosity, Beauty finds they outweigh his one beastly deed—his captivity of her. She is able to sympathize, even to forgive, as her realization that she loves him proves. Beauty later describes her changed perception of Beast and her experiences in his castle by saying, “[w]hen I began to learn to see” (244). For most of her life she’s focused on outer beauty. Learning to see past Beast’s facade enables her to appreciate his true character.
The week Beauty spends with her family, and their desire for her not to return to the castle, also establishes a new conflict for Beauty. She must choose between her family and Beast. Beauty wants to honor her promise to return to the castle. However, that might not have been enough against the desire to stay with her family if Beauty hadn’t come to love Beast. This newly recognized love also influences her decision and she concludes: “They were no less dear to me, but he was dearer yet” (214). When Beauty explains to her family why she must go back to the castle, she focuses on honoring her promise. Duty, honor, and sacrifice have always been valued within the Huston family, so they can best understand her decision in these terms. Beauty’s father says she was “well named” (228), referring to her given name of Honour. The faithfulness with which Beauty approaches her relationship with Beast mirrors the loyalty embodied in her relationship with her family. As a result, the novel’s resolution sees her getting to be with Beast and her family.
The final scenes resolve several other conflicts as well. Beauty demonstrates that she’s finally overcome her self-perception of ugliness and her lack of self-worth when she stands in front of the golden-framed mirror and sees her own beauty. Beauty’s external conflict with a society that devalues intellect and strength in women leads her to find happiness with Beast because he never tries to limit her the way society did. By reading with her and finding ways to interact with Greatheart, for example, Beast honors the things Beauty truly values. Thus he supports her in developing her sense of worth apart from society’s narrow expectations. A final conflict involves overlapping relationships between fear, perception, and love. When Beauty overcomes her fear of Beast, she gains clarity; a new kind of vision that changes her perception of Beast. It allows her to see beyond his beastly exterior to his true character, which leads her to love him. By choosing to be courageous in the face of fear, Beauty shapes her own destiny and discovers real love and happiness.
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