The aspect that stands out the most in Charles Perrault's version (and many other versions) of Bluebeard is the violence. Bluebeard is not a typical fairytale in this respect. In the beginning of the story Bluebeard is introduced as an outsider because his beard is blue. He is feared by the townspeople because of that and the fact that no one really knows what became of his first seven wives.
When a woman does agree to marry him it is not a Beauty and the Beast like ending where he sheds the qualities that made him different. In fact, the woman finds out some even more sinister about him when she enters the forbidden room. That is where violence is introduced to the story. The woman finds the bloody corpses of Bluebeard's seven wives.
Then, when Bluebeard returns, he finds out she has been inside the room and tells her that she will now join the rest of his wives in that room. Even her crying and pleading have no effect on his heart that is described to be harder than stone.
The aspect that Bluebeard does share with other fairy tales is its happy ending. The woman's brothers arrive just in time to save her and kill Bluebeard. The woman inherits all of Bluebeard's wealth and she then marries a worthy man.
To me the most interesting part of the tale is the end where two morals of the story are given. The first moral implies that is it always women who give into curiosity and that it always leads to bad situations. The second one, however, goes in a very different direction and says that it is women who are always in charge in a relationship and that men must "toe the line."
I was also very intrigued by the second moral of Charles Perrault. I think that this moral can be much more easily seen in some of the other fairy tales, but it is definitely there throughout the Bluebeard motif because it is the woman that causes his death. This could also be interpreted as a more modern take on the fairy tale - men cannot threaten force over women for any reason and expect to get away with it. Bluebeard in the story doesn't get away with his domestic violence, and ends up skewered on his brother-in-law's sword.
ReplyDeleteThe second moral seemed somewhat dissonant compared to the larger frame of the story and the first moral. Perrault's story seems to focus much more on the failings of the woman, and therefore perhaps all women in general, than some of the other versions. It's almost as if the second "moral" is just a snarky, misogynist comment that Perrault throws in at the end, with a quick jab at the ribs of his other male readers. "The wife is in charge, isn't she boys?"
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