Review on "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault -- A Children's Literature Assignment

There is always darkness lurking behind acts of kindness, just like the existence of shadows beneath everything under sunlight. Judge not. This is human nature.                   -- Preface

Despite being a gruesome horror story, and the fact that it is way too gross to be included in the collection of fairy tales for children; the Bluebeard is categorised as a fairy tale. The folklore, featuring the theme of deadly female curiosity and compulsive homicidal patriarch society of the French Freudalism, published in 1697 by Charles Perrault in his collection of fairytales: Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passe[1], have received much criticism since then, especially after World War II. After more than 200 years, classic fairy tales, which was considered as “ancient wisdom”, could not provide the society satisfactory answers anymore. Moreover, during 1960s, with the rise of feminism, Bluebeard, portraying female as weak and passive, with male being possessive and tyrant, has had fingers of critics finding fault here and there. Although it receives a huge amount of criticism from critics of various fields, it failed to be as popular as The Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and others. One main reason is that most adults find it inappropriate to read the stories to children, as Maria Tatar said:

“It did not prove attractive to tale collectors, who are eager to assemble stories that would appeal to adult sensibilities about what was inappropriate reading for children. And while so Bluebeard… got lost on its way from adult storytelling cultures to children’s books, the tale managed to lead a powerful literary afterlife without ever being fully aware that its constituent parts belong to a narrative whole.” (Tatar, 2004)

One thing for sure, Disney does not turn it into a major motion picture, and parents choose not to read to the story their children. Because of this, Bluebeard is not a story that many of us grew up with. (Anneloes, 2011) Then, how did it manage to get its way to me when I was a child?  The answer is, driven by curiosity. As a child, I have been fascinated by stories, and how the plot reveals itself, how the villain is defeated, and how justice triumphs eventually. I suppose that it is indeed human nature to explore, to seek for things that are different than what we experience in daily lives, and to indulge in certain amount of imagination and fantasy. Both my parents rarely tell stories, but they let me to have the full authority in choosing what I want to read. They explained difficult words to me, and taught me to use dictionary- at the age of five; since then I am used to reading independently. My family has been a constant patron of libraries, and it’s to no surprise that I encountered the story of Bluebeard when I was eight or nine. And because I have a habit of rereading the books (after a few years’ gap), I am quite familiar with the story.

Bluebeard is not a real given name, but he is called Bluebeard because he has a blue-coloured beard. At the beginning of the story, Perrault asks us to:

Take the time to stop and think,

And to ponder this grim little story.

You surely know that this tale

Took place many years ago.  (Perrault, 1967)

Distancing the audience with the story with the notion that “it took place many years ago,” Perrault has perhaps lessened the fear of one entering the story, because he tells us that it is a grim one. Nevertheless, the child me is one persistent child who finishes reading her story once she picks up a book. Hence, I delved into the story without hesitation. I was surprising fearless as a child, and maybe that time I haven’t been thought the real meaning of the fear word itself.

Bluebeard, a wealthy but ugly blue-bearded man with many riches, has a bad reputation, because of the blue beard, and also because he has married several wives who vanished to nowhere. Therefore we know, no matter as children or as adults, that this Bluebeard man is no good soul, if not where does all his wives go? I knew back then, Bluebeard has something hiding up his sleeves, and since “Nobody ever knew what became of them”, it also suggests that he is very good at concealing his secrets. As Bluebeard conveys his wishes to marry one of the daughters of the lady in his neighbourhood, he fails because the girls despise him and would not want to marry such a frightful creature. However, Bluebeard is determined in getting what he wants: He throws a party for seven days and nights, the event is so successful that “the youngest daughter began to think the master of the house not to have a beard so very blue, and that he was a mighty civil gentleman”. The little me, lured by my own curiosity towards Bluebeard, and how the story revealed the suspense and mystery, plunged head on, into the deeper waters.

And so the marriage is done, and all goes well for a month, until Bluebeard has some “affairs of very great consequence” (which I didn’t really understand when I read it the first time, but I made a wild guess that it was to mean something important). He gives the keys to all his rooms and chambers to his wife, asks her to invite all her friends, but forbids her to enter the little closet at the end of gallery, to the extent that he warned her “If you happen to open it, there’s nothing but what you may expect from my anger and resentment”.  To this point of the story, even as a child, I could surely predict that the wife is going to open the closet door anyway, because any typical storyline would go on like that!

Bluebeard leaves the house and his wife invites her neighbours and friends (who never been to the bride’s new house as they are too frightened of Bluebeard). They unlock door by door, praising non-stoppingly on the wealth of Bluebeard’s possessions, at the same time envious of his wife. Yet his wife takes no heed of their excitement: she is too busy thinking about the forbidden closet!  At last her curiosity wins, and she thrusts in the little key and unlock the closet door. What a ghastly sight!

“After some moments she began to perceive that the floor was all covered with clotted blood, on which lay the bodies of several dead women, ranged against the wall. (These were all wives whom Bluebeard had married and murdered, one after another.)”

The poor wife is terribly shaken, and the key falls out of her hand to the floor. Hastily she retrieves the key and locks the door, fleeing the scene to recover herself. Here comes the sole magical part in the story: the key is stained by blood, but no matter how the wife tries to clean it, the stain will not go off. My heart goes for the wife- what is she supposed to do when Bluebeard came back! We readers certainly do not hope misfortune to land upon this young lady! The story pace goes on faster as Bluebeard returns home the same evening, and demands of the keys the next morning. Bluebeard knows his wife doings, and wants to murder he. The wife tries all she can to buy some time for herself, she begs Bluebeard for some time to say her prayers; and she is not afraid of asking help: she calls upon her visiting sister who is still in the house, and asks her to go up the tower to signal her brothers to come faster to her.

Bluebeard urges the wife thrice to come downstairs and receive her death; so does the wife urges sister Anne to see if her brothers have come to the rescue. It is a very typical number 3 that appears in fairy tale, and the third time being the climax. Bluebeard, grabbing a sabre (cutlass in Zipes translated version), is about to lash open the throat of the woman when her brothers (both soldiers) charge in and take away his life. Alas, our protagonist is saved! The murderous homicidal serial killer is dead!

Perrault definitely gives the story the happy ending touch- evil is defeated and the innocent is saved. The wife (the widow now) inherits all his fortune, and uses them to make her family condition better. She marries off herself to “a very worthy gentleman, who made her forget Bluebeard’s cruelty.” Upon this point, the child needs are satisfied, here comes the closure of the story, which doesn’t sound as sorry as those dead wives the lady found in the closet, and also the murderer is dead! Yay! Hooray!

Ending the story with two morals, which somewhat seems contradicting with one another, Perrault attempts to give advice to the readers of the story, in which I didn’t pay attention at all to those lines when I was a kid. The first moral states that curiosity is a short-lived pleasure that once enjoyed, always proves to “cost too dearly”.  The other moral, stating that the story is ‘a tale of times”, and husbands are no longer so terrible. (Or is that so?)

 Reminiscing the times when I first read the story, and what I feel now, I am surprised that the young-aged me managed to read through the whole story unfazed while having my meal. Maybe it’s because Perrault says that it is a story of olden times, and I believe it anyway that it will not happen around me. But the more I know, the more I fear. Fascinated and intrigued by human darker nature, my choice of fiction has always been fantasy, horror, thriller, mystery, suspense and adventure. I am now aware that a psychopath could be easily lurking among us, it could even be the one closer to us, just like Bluebeard is the husband to the wife. Therefore, the moral I conclude myself, not given by Perrault explicitly, is not to make decision hastily, and not to be blinded by wealth, which many women chose the path.  This story also tells us that an unhappy marriage may as well equal to death, and living in a violent and abusive one (Bluebeard existence is mentally-abusive to the wife in a way, the felling she supresses when she opted for his wealth). The lady at the end is better off without her husband. This tells us that being single is not a bad thing at all, and Perrault maybe criticising the constitution of marriage during that period, where society is patriarchal. We could simply generalise Bluebeard as husbands who are typical tyrants, but how does Perrault know that in future, husbands do not demand the impossible of their wives? There is never a universal truth that applies to each and every individual in this world. Although gender inequality is reduced to minimal level, there are always cases of abusive relationships, no matter which gender is the assault side. Therefore, my views on this is to not let any tell-tale sign slip. For example, in the story, the youngest daughter is blinded by his wealth and also his made-up fun-and-enjoyable party and married him, ignoring the gut instincts that tell her Bluebeard is frightful in the first place. In this case, Perrault’s Bluebeard is a symbol, blue being the colour of exotic, dreamy and foreign; while beard representing the bestial nature of the villain. The signs are clear in the first place, although we may not judge a book by its cover, we shall take cautionary steps.

As a child sometimes I thought, why is that in most of the stories, the villain must be dead in order to provide is a happy ending? Can it not be other ways than killing off other people? If killing is wrong in the first place, as Bluebeard murders his previous wives; then is it considered “rightful” for the wife’s brothers to take Bluebeard’s life? Moreover, after killing him, they benefit from the dead’s fortune. Doesn’t it sound “wrong”? I considered myself lucky to have not mimicked the characters in any fairy tale, as I know the stories are not meant to be true; but what would become of a child if he imagines himself to be the hero, and execute “justice” by his own? We must be aware that fairy tales are not applicable in real life, and we cannot take revenge onto whomever that seems to be “villains”. Parents and teachers should provide guidance to children especially regarding this matter. It is vital to educate them which is the “rightful” way to fight against evil. The key lies in, whether the children are able to differentiate good versus evil, and also develop a critical thinking of his own, a principle of life which he uses to deal with larger issues.

Curiosity, as a main theme in the story, is portrayed as “deadly and fatal”. This raised controversy and different views among critics. As curiosity is the key to gain knowledge, in Bluebeard, it is somewhat portrayed as a negative trait female possesses. If the wife was able to obey her husband in the first place and passed the “test”, would she still remain safe for the rest of her marriage? I very much doubted that. Let’s assume all the previous wives failed the “forbidden closet” test, that what prompted Bluebeard to kill his first wife? What could she possibly done wrong? Who is Bluebeard’s first kill[2]? It sends shivers down my spine that someone, somewhere on this Earth, maybe the next Bluebeard.

Although Bluebeard is not favourable at all in any sense, and it is still a controversy whether to expose children to elements of violence, not to mention addition bloody scenes; to me, I agree with Perrault’s intention of asking us to ponder upon this grim little story. The Bluebeard is definitely worth ponder upon: the story creates more questions than providing solutions for us. Critics have provided much diverse interpretations over the years. It is true that Bluebeard is no longer a popular story in this modern society, because it does not comply with our current cultural values anymore. It might be on its way to extinction in the children literature’s genre.

Maria Tatar, however, explained why there are still people like me, keep returning to this tale and being attracted to it. This is because there existed the attractions of basic human traits that can be found at the heart of this story:

Trust, fidelity, commitment and reliability: these never disappear from the scene, nor do betrayal, abandonment and capriciousness. And so Bluebeard is, in many ways, here to stay. Our Bluebeard need not to resemble Perrault’s foundation story, but instead take from it a set of ingredients that are measured out in new doses and proportions to keep the cauldron of storytelling constantly bubbling. (Tatar, 2009)