Beauty and The Beast is a classic fairy tale, known most widely to a modern audience because of movies and animation. Readers can relax when they read fairy stories because they usually know the outcome, as do most of the avid, young listeners.
The setting in a piece of literature does a lot in helping to create the atmosphere in a story and is a basic component of any such work, where it is discussed together with the theme, plot and characters. The obvious element of the setting is the place or geographic location where the story takes place. It can then be broken down more specifically. Beauty and the Beast is set in France but it does not stop there; there is the town and then there is the countryside. It also depends on which version a person is reading as there is more than one. Furthermore, most people only think of the Beast's home when they think of Beauty and The Beast, forgetting that the story has more elements to it.
Setting sometimes has a cultural element to it which goes hand in hand with the historical aspect of the setting and the year or era in which the activities take place. ; for example, understanding life in the eighteenth century helps to set the scene for the story and the clothing and traditions of Belle's era.