Many people think Belle was an outcast in the town because she can read. I don't think the store was opened only for Belle. I am sure she and her father are also newcomers to the village too.
share"Many people think Belle was an outcast in the town because she can read."
Where did you get that? People just think she's weird because she reads ALL the time, even walking through town with her nose stuck in a book. Only Gaston says that women SHOULDN'T read.
This is the correct answer. This wasn't the middle ages, farmers could typically read and write well enough to keep accounts and read the family holy book, but they didn't have the time or money to read for fun. Neither would have any woman who was keeping a house for a husband or male relative without servants, that would usually mean 20 hours hard work a day and no money of her own.
If Belle had lived in a real 17th or 18th century European village, she'd have been seen as a weirdo and a pathetic slacker as a housekeeper, and not someone a man with sense would want to marry even if she was pretty and had all her teeth. They'd approve of Gaston wanting to marry her, he could probably afford servants to do the hard labor, and he'd knock some sense into her.
Now that you mention it, that does seem kinda weird to have a bookshop in a town full of illiterate peasants.
shareOnly Gaston seems to think reading is not for girls (or anyone else, probably). I don't think its implied anywhere in the film that everyone else in the town is illiterate.
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Agree. Gaston wasn't just a man of his time, he was a misogynist even their standards.
Someone above pointed out that Belle wasn't the only literate person in the village, but was considered odd because she read constantly.
>>>but was considered odd because she read constantly.<<<
I know that attitude. When I was young I was sitting at a bus stop waiting for my connection and reading. Some woman I had never seen before came up to me and informed me I must not have any friends or I wouldn't be reading like that. The derision in her voice when she said reading was astonishing.
As everyone said, the townspeople are not implied to be illiterate. they simply don't get why a woman is so obsessed with reading instead of trying to nab a husband or more traditionally feminine things.
Also, this takes place in the 18th century, where moralistic watchdogs argued that excessive novel-reading was bad for women because it might corrupt their morals or make them excessively romantic.