The Power of Naming and Identity in Beasts and Beauty
In Soman Chainani’s Beasts and Beauty, names are never mere labels. They are spells, contracts, and mirrors that reveal or conceal a character’s true self. Across the collection, the act of knowing, changing, or withholding a name determines who holds power over a person’s fate and identity. The thematic claim is clear: to name something is to claim dominion over it, while to be unnamed is to be vulnerable. Chainani repeatedly tests this principle—sometimes a name becomes a weapon of liberation, other times a cage of expectation—and in doing so, he rewrites fairy-tale logic to show that identity is not given but fought for.
The Devil’s Name: Knowledge as Liberation
The most direct exploration of naming occurs in the Rumpelstiltskin retelling (Chapter 11). Mathilde, the miller’s daughter, makes a deal with the Devil: in exchange for spinning straw into gold, she promises her firstborn child. The Devil seals the pact with a mark on her hand. After she becomes queen and bears a son, the Devil returns to claim the child. Mathilde begs, and the Devil offers a game: guess his name within three days.
Here, the name is a key to a lock. The Devil taunts Mathilde with multiple guesses, knowing that a name is the one thing that can bind him. He says, “Name me and I belong to you instead of you to me.” This confession reveals the story’s core logic: a name is a chain. Mathilde’s quest to learn “Rumpelstiltskin” is not mere trivia; it is an act of reclamation. She disguises herself, travels to markets and forests, and finally learns the truth from her own baby’s babbling. When she speaks the name aloud, the Devil loses his power over her son and ultimately destroys himself. The name “Rumpelstiltskin” sounds absurd, almost childish, deflating the Devil’s menace. By giving the devil a name, Mathilde turns him from a cosmic force into a creature that can be defeated. Her own identity, meanwhile, transforms from victim to savior—she saves her child without a prince, proving that a woman who learns a name can become her own hero.
Mei and the Beast: The Name We Are Given vs. the Name We Choose
The Beauty and the Beast retelling (Chapter 7) offers a more intimate struggle with naming. Mei’s father names her “Mei,” which means “beauty,” and he constantly laments that her beauty is wasted on a bookish, independent girl. The name is a prophecy he wants her to fulfill: to marry well and embody conventional loveliness. But Mei rejects that destiny. She plans to kill the Beast and claim his castle for herself, dreaming of “a house of her own with a library two stories high.” She does not want to be “Beauty” in any fairy-tale sense; she wants autonomy.
The Beast, meanwhile, is known only by that label. He says, “Call me ‘Beast,’ because that is how you see me.” The name is imposed by others who fear his appearance—it erases his former identity as a beautiful prince and reduces him to a monster. In the original fairy tale, the Beast’s name is never revealed; here, Chainani emphasizes that the name “Beast” is a curse that prevents anyone from seeing his true nature. When Mei finally falls in love with him, she does so not because he transforms into a prince, but because she learns to look past the label. Yet the story complicates this: after the Beast turns back into a handsome prince (the spell breaks when Mei kisses him), she does not recognize him. “To look and not see,” the narrative says. “She is as guilty as the rest.” She stabs him because she sees only a stranger wearing a gilded suit, not the Beast she loved. The prince’s physical identity changes, but Mei’s inability to connect that new name (prince) to his soul nearly kills him. Names and appearances, Chainani suggests, can be equally deceptive.
The Little Mermaid: The Unasked Name
The Little Mermaid retelling (Chapter 10) takes a different approach to naming. The sea witch confronts the mermaid about her plan to win a prince. The witch says, “With all that you’re about to give up for him … you don’t even know his name.” The mermaid admits she does not. The witch uses this as evidence that the mermaid is projecting a fantasy onto a stranger. To love someone without knowing their name is to love an idea, not a person. The witch herself once did the same for the mermaid’s father, surrendering her power for a man who never truly saw her. The name, then, becomes a symbol of real knowledge. Without it, the mermaid cannot hold the prince accountable; she gives up her voice, her body, and her eternal soul for a man she has never questioned.
This moment parallels Mathilde’s experience but inverts it. Mathilde gains power by learning a name; the mermaid loses power by never even asking one. Chainani suggests that the fairy-tale trope of silent, self-sacrificing love is a trap. The witch’s warning—“Ask too many questions and … We’ll see who they are? A pig instead of a prince?”—reinforces that naming is a form of agency. The mermaid’s refusal to know the prince’s name is a refusal to see him clearly, and that blindness is the story’s tragedy.
Complexity and Contradiction: When Names Fail
Chainani does not present naming as a simple solution. The Rapunzel story (Chapter 4) shows how a name can be used to possess. The gardener names the unborn child “Rapunzel” even before she is born, claiming her as his own. He takes the baby from her mother and locks her in a tower. The name “Rapunzel” is not liberating; it is a label that marks her as property. Similarly, in the Devil’s game, Mathilde’s successful guess does not erase the mark on her hand or undo the trauma of the deal. The Devil’s death is violent, and the king and her father later die in suspicious accidents—perhaps dragged to Hell. The happy ending is ambiguous. Names can break chains, but they cannot erase history.
Another contradiction appears in Beauty and the Beast. The Beast is freed from his curse by true love’s kiss, but his transformation into a prince causes a crisis of identity. Mei loved him as a Beast, not as a prince. The story ends not with a wedding but with Mei alone in the castle, reading books, waiting for the invisible Beast to leave her a new one. The prince’s new name—and new face—do not automatically earn trust. Chainani leaves the reader wondering whether Mei will ever truly accept his changed identity.
Character and Symbol Connections
Several symbols from the collection tie into the theme of naming. The knife hidden in a basket (used by Red Riding Hood) is a tool of defiance—Red Riding Hood rejects her name as “the prettiest girl” marked for sacrifice and instead names herself as a hunter. The glass coffin that holds the Snow Queen’s body in the Snow White story is a silent tomb, a place where the stepmother’s name is forgotten. Snow White refuses the prince’s offer and claims her own throne, redefining her role. The bloodstained key from the Bluebeard-like story within Beauty and the Beast represents forbidden knowledge—the wife who uses the key learns the secret name of her husband’s violence.
Characters like Mathilde and Mei (though Mei is not a listed character page, note the closest available link is the Prince from Sleeping Beauty; better to use relevant existing links: Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Rapunzel, Jack, Mathilde, and the Prince) each grapple with the tension between given names and chosen identities. The Devil’s name, “Rumpelstiltskin,” is itself a symbol of absurdity that deflates authority—a name so silly it cannot be taken seriously, yet it holds terrifying power until spoken aloud.
Five Study Questions and Answers
1. How does learning the Devil’s name in “Rumpelstiltskin” change the power dynamic between Mathilde and the Devil?
Answer: Before Mathilde learns the name, the Devil controls her fate—he holds her son and can demand anything. Once she says “Rumpelstiltskin,” the Devil is bound by the rules of the deal. He loses his power, his body tears apart, and Mathilde keeps her child. The name gives Mathilde the knowledge she needs to defeat a seemingly invincible adversary.
2. In “Beauty and the Beast,” why does Mei stab the transformed prince, and what does this reveal about identity?
Answer: Mei stabs the prince because she does not recognize him. He looks like “one of her father’s men” in a gilded suit, not her Beast. This reveals that identity is not just a name or appearance; it is built on shared experience and love. Mei’s inability to see past the new face shows that names and forms can be deceptive, and that true identity must be learned over time.
3. The sea witch tells the little mermaid that she does not know the prince’s name. Why is this detail significant?
Answer: Not knowing the prince’s name means the mermaid has never truly seen him as an individual. She loves an idea, not a person. The witch argues that asking someone’s name is the first step toward knowing them—their character, faithfulness, and equality. Without that knowledge, the mermaid is sacrificing everything for a fantasy.
4. How is naming used as a form of ownership in the “Rapunzel” chapter?
Answer: The gardener names the unborn child “Rapunzel” and then takes her from her parents. The name is a claim: it marks the child as his possession. He locks her in a tower, controlling her life. Here, the act of naming precedes and enables captivity, contrasting with Mathilde’s liberating use of a name.
5. Does the theme of naming suggest that identity is fixed or changeable in Beasts and Beauty? Provide examples.
Answer: The theme suggests identity is changeable but not effortlessly so. Mathilde changes from helpless girl to queen who outwits the Devil by learning a name. Mei changes from dutiful daughter to independent woman who chooses her own destiny. The Beast changes from beautiful prince to monster and back again, but his true identity remains the same. Names can be imposed or reclaimed, but the self underneath requires active effort to define and defend.