This month we’ve been celebrating Beauty and the Beast by examining symbols from the story. So far, we’ve covered the rose, the books, and the beast. Today we’re going even bigger: the castle itself!
The Beast’s castle isn’t often given a lot of thought, aside from as a setting for the story. Even in a general sense, we don’t often think of castles as symbols. But a castle is a perfect example of how setting can set the tone: a light, magical castle speaks of enchantment and escape and happy endings, while a dark, messy, or haunted castle speaks of danger, tragedy, and getting lost or imprisoned.
I find it interesting that both the light and dark version of the castle indicate a removal from daily life. In Beauty and the Alchemist, the castle also has a sense of being removed from time, which becomes central to the story. That subplot came to me very naturally while I was writing–perhaps because of all the ruined castles I’d visited while living in England. 🙂
In general, castles have become synonymous with fantasy. Just think of Disney, or phrases like “building castles in the sky”! And yet there’s something very evocative about them, whether they’re shiny and new or cobwebby and decrepit. Perhaps it’s an almost tangible sense of setting–that in a castle, any kind of story can happen.
Selected Sources
Today’s post mostly came from my own head, but if you’d like to dive into the creation of Disney’s Beast’s castle, check out its wiki fandom page as a good place to start. You can also find lots of articles online like this one about the real-life castle that inspired the Disney setting!
