What’s with the rose?

It’s a tale as old as time, one that everyone seems to know at some level…Beauty and the Beast. Where the Beauty meets the Beast, they fall in love, and the curse is broken (more or less). And in the midst of all this lies the rose. 

I don’t believe I have ever read a Beauty and the Beast retelling that does not feature a physical or metaphorical rose in some way, shape, or form. No matter how irrelevant it is to the overall retelling, the author will somehow always slip in the idea of a rose. Whether it’s just that the main character has a rose garden he or she is fond of, or a necklace with a diamond called The Rose, there appears to be some rule mandating that if it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling, it has to have a rose.

After looking more into this topic, it became clear to me that the rose served not only as a symbol of love and romance, but as a clever tool for the original author of Beauty and the Beast to introduce Beauty to the Beast. 

In the original story, the rose seems to be the instigator of everything that happens, since it is only when the merchant “steals” it that the Beast reveals himself and declares that one of his daughters can take the merchant’s place. Clearly, the rose is integral to the story. Without it, none of the events could have occurred in the first place.

So while the rose might sometimes seem trivial, it is truly one of the most important parts of Beauty and the Beast.

Fairy truly yours,

Grace W. Wong