The Beastly and the Beautiful Part 3: The Enfant Terrible

Continued from The Beastly and the Beautiful Part 2

We can observe how an overgrown child operates when given too much reign over us, by recounting the actions and attitudes of the Beast. This is not an indictment of character, but rather a tool or a test to gauge the extent to which a normal part of us may have grown larger while staying hidden away. It is important to get a sense of this, before we consider confronting it. 

The masculine pronoun is used here solely to follow the pattern of the story. Beastliness and Beauty are neither masculine nor feminine, do not refer to moral comparisons, and is not a psychological profile of any person. The focus here is on hindrances to our creative development, ones that most of us experience at times, and how they can block our function in the world as La Belle. 

Aspects of the Enfant Terrible

Waits for a Solution to Knock Upon His Door. The villagers have forgotten the existence of a castle with a living prince. In medieval times, the entire village existed in service to the feudal lord. But this Beast has not made even a foray beyond his immediate realm in search of assistance. There has been no strategy, no adjustment, no attempt; only a resentful and passive waiting. The sorceress has shown up at his door with a curse, so he assumes that this is also the only way to a secure a blessing-- to have it handed to him, or even imposed upon him.

Remains Unenlightened. When he observes Belle's sacrificial exchange of place with her father, the Beast is shocked and confused by this. Sometimes when we see other people who are devoted to their art or craft, we might feel bewildered as well. How do they do it? We are marginally curious, perhaps, but the Beast does nothing to educate or enlighten himself; he testily reasserts his authority as the one in charge. He has been confronted with something he doesn't yet comprehend, and so he dismisses it without understanding.

Overestimates His Generosity. What he offers to others is magnanimous in his view, but is really just humane, or very basic manners that a toddler can learn. After urging from others, the Beast offers Belle a bedchamber to sleep in, rather than the dungeon. We, too, can be stingy with ourselves. We might plan to devote a certain part of our day to our work, but the Beast gets fractious and temperamental. He's going to take back his offerings, like a small child does with its toys; create distractions; throw a tantrum and punish anyone who stands up to him, usually by withholding. Meanwhile, he will regard himself as having been kind for even tolerating others and their basic needs and rights. He has no consideration for how others have tolerated or considered him. He is ungrateful and feels taken advantage of.

Lays Down Arbitrary and Rigid Laws. "If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all." There are all sorts of conditions we can place on when and how we can create, that have nothing to do with carefully determined priorities and time-management skills. This is an emotionally exhausting case of "only after". Only after the child is satisfied do we allow ourselves to step out of our roles with whatever is left over, trying not to wake the baby. While this is a temporary situation with an actual baby or young child during the time when they are needful and dependent, a state of anxious caretaking can continue into becoming a mechanical routine easily and unquestioningly submitted to. There is no negotiation table on how time and energy is spent, but only a perennial royal highchair to contend with.

Blames Everyone Else. The Beast's limitations are blamed on someone else, whether it is a woman in disguise, an institution, a leader, lazy employees, or a lack of benefits he felt entitled to. He has hidden himself away, and makes a shrine of the curse or hardship that was visited upon him. He protects the rose with a beautiful crystal jar, while he obsessively watches it lose its vitality as time goes on. 

Instead of discovering what he can do with his beastly form, he wallows in his rejection and imposes his own exile. He brings nothing into the world through him, but is mistrustful, jealous and destructive. He can't see or is uninterested in how others are coping with their limitations, and is protective of his viewpoint that he is uniquely cursed and doomed. When he looks at the struggles of others, he sees only their lack, as reflections of himself, and not their own individually discovered strengths. Nothing means more to him than the Rose that defines him. He feels it forever attached to him, although he is the one keeping it in an airless, beautiful, but isolated prison without nurture.

Validates Only His Cynical and Hopeless Perspective. Because this infant has limited experience of genuine interactions, he can't imagine that anyone could be stronger or kinder than he is. He can't imagine that anyone would find him lovable at all, because he doesn't. He sees the world only as an extension of himself, and so the motivations of others can only reflect his own. If this weren't so, then he would have to admit that he isn't inherently superior to those around him. 

Sometimes if we are faced with an obstacle, or if someone doesn't receive us or our work as enthusiastically as we want, this can confirm our bias that the world is as bad as we suspect ourselves to be. At the first sign of rejection, the Beast intones,"It's hopeless. She'll never see me as anything but a monster." He puts the magic mirror away, with affords him only a partial view of reality. He might find his misery comforting, or his cynicism entertaining, but only for brief periods. Mostly, he is suspicious and regards any other viewpoint as an attempt to deceive, control, or prevent him from getting what he wants.

Belle's Father and the Beast

"You are very ready with excuses and flattery; but that will not save you from the death you deserve."

Rejects and Abandons Himself and Others in Retaliation. Denying the possibility that he could be a monster, yet a monster that is trying very hard to learn and grow, he chides himself for even imagining that things could be better. Depression is not an affliction that he must endure and manage; rather, it is a normalized state with habits to be protected as well. When we do anything that the depressed Beast feels shown up by, then we are being disloyal to him and his depression. He cannot identify with the needs and actions of the Beautiful child that is functioning alongside him. His ego may attempt to imitate her for a bit, but without heart, and so he gives up before he begins. Abandoning his attempts to develop seem to him the just deserts for someone so utterly hopeless as himself.

Judges Swiftly and Harshly. When the mature man inside the Beast does learn to love Belle by letting her go, he also lets go of his nearly discovered love for himself. The Beast is threatened by someone else, anyone else, receiving what he has decided he cannot receive-- love and assistance-- while still in his beastly state. He withdraws and relinquishes all responsibility-- literally, the ability to respond-- as he deems himself invalidated by his own suffering. Being mortally offended by life, he decides he is irredeemable at his core.

Hides his Agenda and Demands Fealty. Fealty is sworn by subjects to rulers without question. They may be pressed into it, and it is different from genuine loyalty that is earned over time. He isn't straightforward with Belle, yet he wants her unqualified devotion, like an unintelligible baby that can't explain why it needs its mother. After his disappointment that Belle does care about her father's well-being more than her promise to remain confined to the Beast's selfish arrangement, he abandons everyone. He doesn't give a thought to those who depend upon him, to those that have been serving him for years and whom he depends upon, but lets invaders storm the castle to steal or ruin it all. He simply retreats to his inner sanctum, unwilling to face the first challenge to his right to exist. He walks past all of the servants who are striving however they best can, completely unaffected. How often are we disloyal to ourselves, and allow invaders and challengers to gain what is rightfully ours, without a word? How do we become unaware of, numb to, and indifferent to help?

Gives Up in a Fight. Ironically, the foe that nearly defeats the Beast, is another Enfant Terrible, the narcissistic Gaston. These two children believe that Belle, and all of her qualities, belongs to them and not to herself. They are like sibling rivals, neither truly knowing or wanting what they are fighting over, but simply caught up in a power struggle. The protagonist in this story happens to be female, but this doesn't mean that women have no beastly impediments of their own.

Before we continue with considering the ways that big and little monsters can demand and consume our energy, we first need to validate and protect the Beautiful Child in us, the Bel Enfant, who chooses what she will devote herself to, who doesn't trifle with others, and who expects compassion and good treatment from others because she has these within herself. She is the developing beast's best ally for retaining his power, while restraining aggression or relieving depression. Next, we'll look at what Belle needs to learn and overcome, so that she can experience "much more than this provincial life".

Continued in Part 4: The Belle Enfant