The Courtship of Mr Lyon: The Beauty's Character

The Courtship of Mr Lyon: The Beauty's Character

1. At the beginning of the story, Beauty is described as a beautiful, humble peaceful and pure girl.

   • The Beast sees a photograph of her and he is amazed by her image of innocence and purity. He believes she has been "carved out of a single pearl"
     • "absolute sweetness and absolute gravity, as if her eyes might pierce through appearances and see your soul
   • She becomes corrupted by her wealth and her vanity.
     • Further in the story she becomes more egocentric,"she smiled at herself in mirrors a little too often, these tdays"
       • This makes her look beastly and less beautiful, thinking too much in herself and not in the others.
     • She becomes spoilt, becoming used to having everything she wishes for.
       • "She was learning, at the end of her adolescence, how to be a spoiled child and that pearly skin of hers was plumping out, a little, with high living and compliments."
   • The only thing she asks to his father is a white rose.
     • "the only thing she wanted, no matter how the case went, how rich he might once again be"
   • "She longed for the shabby home of their poverty"

2. She adores her father, and "would gladly have gne to the ends of the earth for her father"

   • She stays at the Beast's house for him to achieve greatness in London.
     • She becomes objectified as her father uses her as a method of payment to the Beast for him not to be hurt and to achieve greatness.
       • "Do not think that she had no will of her own; only, she was possesed by a sense of obligation in an unusual degree"
     • "She stayed, and smiled, because her father wanted to do so"
       • She ends up falling in love with him, even with all their differences.
         • Leaves her father and her life in London for the Beast.
           • "Don't die, Beast! If you'll have me, I'll never leave you"
   • Goes to dinner to a Beast's house,putting herself in danger as she doesn't know what will happen.
     • "They belong to a different order of beauty and, besides, they have no respect for us: why should they?"

3. She is physically beautiful, whille the Beast is internaly beautiful and loving, although he is physically beast-like.

   • "with a strange kind o fwonder, almost the dawning of surmise"
     • "
       • Gives certain hope to Mr Lyon, that she migh like him and not be afraid of him if she can see his soul.

4. She is innocent, submissive and timid, but ends up being strong and independent.