Abstract
This essay examines ableist ideology in various early modern “Beauty and the Beast” tales in contrast to Dominique Demers’s 2001 novel Là où la mer commence (There, Where the Sea Begins). I first discuss how ableism permeates both the fairy-tale genre and, to varying degrees, “Beauty and Beast” tales so as to contextualize my reading of how disability is narrated in terms of animality and monstrosity in Demers’s postmodern novel. I argue that, in Demers’s adaptation, the heroine’s acceptance of the beastly character may be read as her internal transition from an ableist gaze, which dehumanizes, stigmatizes, and marginalizes the disabled other, to a non-ableist gaze.
Recommended Citation
Dula, Adrion. "B(e)aring the Beast: Deformity, Animality, and the Ableist Gaze in French Literary Variants of “Beauty and the Beast”." Marvels & Tales 34.2 (2021). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol34/iss2/4>.
