Something There: Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Something There: Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Name meaning: French, “Beautiful”

Belle is one of my favorite characters. We are a lot alike. Belle is a smart, strong-willed, imaginative dreamer. She is a romantic who loves fantasy stories and gardening. She is a realistic portrayal, kind yet opinionated, and bulldog-loyal. She believes in her father’s talent and that he will one day be a success. She seems to have inherited his creativity, though not his scatterbrained quality.
Belle is somehow elegant and naturally beautiful at once, a quality which is admired by her neighbors, particularly the self-centered Gaston, Adonis to the village, where beauty counts for more than brains. Belle is unfulfilled there. She is lonely but can’t relate to the small-minded, gossipy townsfolk. While everyone seems to like her, or at least admire her for her looks, her only friend seems to be the proprietor of the tiny town bookshop, an elderly man who shares her enthusiasm for good stories.

When Maurice goes missing, Belle searches for him, and fearlessly offers herself to the Beast to save her father’s life. She nurses him when he is sick, and befriends the enchanted objects of the castle instantly. While literally self-sacrificing, Belle stands her ground when opposed, refusing to dine with the Beast and fighting Gaston to keep the Beast and Maurice safe. She sees through Gaston and is disgusted by his vanity and pigheadedness. She can’t bear the thought of marrying such a ‘boorish, brainless’ man, despite the ideas of the townsfolk, Gaston himself, and even her own father. She considers him “handsome, all right…and rude and conceited.” In other words, being handsome doesn’t excuse you from being a butthead.

Belle longs for a life outside of the pretty, stifling French village, a life of travel and adventure and romance instead of simply raising kids and keeping house. She is a girl ahead of her time, headstrong, unconcerned with people’s perceptions of her, a feminist.

Her clothing and hairstyles are simple yet classy, and her golden-yellow gown is stunning.

Belle bon mots
Gaston: How can you read this? There's no pictures!
Belle: Well, some people use their imagination.

Belle: Dogs?

Belle: It is you!

Belle: Gaston, you are positively primeval.

Belle: Take me instead.

Belle: You have my word.

Belle: If you'd hold still, it wouldn't hurt as much!
Beast: Well if you hadn't have run away, this wouldn't have happened.
Belle: If you hadn't frightened me, I wouldn't have run away!

Belle: [singing] I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand, to have someone understand...I want so much more than they've got planned.

Belle: [singing] Oh, isn't this amazing/ It's my favorite part because, you'll see/ Here's where she meets Prince Charming/ But she won't discover that it's him/ Till chapter three.