The enchantment over Beast and his castle, which can only be broken by a maiden loving him in spite of his ugliness, is the central premise in Beauty. It represents a universal conflict between pretense and truth, distilled into the fairy tale example of outward appearance versus inner beauty. In McKinley’s version of the tale, both Beast and Beauty demonstrate discordance between physical appearance and inner character. Beauty’s perceptions of Beast and of herself, influenced by society, fear, her family, and her own indomitable courage, represent the subjective nature of beauty. To find happiness and love, she must confront these influences and learn to see beyond fear, beyond beastly bodies, and beyond her critical self-image.

Beauty’s descriptions of her sisters in Chapter 1 establish physical beauty as a central concept and emphasize society’s role in defining beauty. When Beauty says of her acne, “[t]here hadn’t been a spot in our mother’s family for centuries” (4), she reveals how physical attractiveness can be a source of family pride and legacy. Yet society doesn’t seem to place the same value on other traits, like intelligence. Beauty’s governesses remark on her cleverness “in a pitying

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