What elements are essential to make a fairy tale recognizable?
This is a question our professor posed about every fairy tale we read in class, and a topic I would like to cover on every fairy tale I post on the blog. Now, I may also cover myths and fantastical creatures, so they won't be subject to this question unless it can apply.
Considering the amount of rehashing any particular fairy tale undergoes, this is a relatively important question, and one I struggled with in writing my Bluebeard tale. I eventually decided not to write a Bluebeard story, but rather just use a prop (the key) and an unrelated serial killer.
So why is my story not truly a reimagining of Bluebeard? Well, for one my story lacks a Bluebeard character. My villain is handsome, though, like Bluebeard he does not hide who he is. However, he shows his villainy through his personality, he doesn't wear it on his face for all to see and can conceal his evil if he chooses to do so. The beard, or some other physical sign, is crucial to making a story a retelling of Bluebeard.
A curious wife who is ignorant of Bluebeard's true character is also missing from my story. My heroine is intelligent; she is well aware of what type of person she is dealing with and wants nothing to do with him. She is forced into dealing with him, and wants to kill him, not marry him for his wealth. The other victims of my Bluebeard character are prostitutes; they aren't his wives, though I suppose a parallel could be drawn between them and Bluebeard's wives, as they too were only interested in him for his money.
What my story does have in common with the Bluebeard tale is the room full of dead women. The use of the room is different in my story than it is in Bluebeard however, for my serial killer it is a place to kill, and it is a place to hide the bodies from the authorities. While his victims see the room before they die, he takes them to the room. He does not set them up to betray him so that he has a reason to kill them. My serial killer needs no justification for murder.
My story also uses the key, however it possesses different magic than the original key, which simply did not allow blood to be cleaned off. My version of the key opens the door to a room that exists on an alternate plane of existence, and it does not bother with blood.
I suppose then, for me, the important elements are the beard (or equally ugly physical feature), the wife, the room and the key. Without all four of these elements, a story just isn't a Bluebeard story.
Jul 29, 2010
Bluebeard Series: Deranged Serial Killer or Betrayed Husband? Part 2.
Did Bluebeard set his wife up to disobey him so that he could justify killing her?
My opinion on that has always been a resounding yes. Of course he did. Bluebeard was playing a twisted game with his wife, as, one assumes, he did with all of his wives. He lured them in with money, used their own curiosity against them, and then butchered them for his own amusement. He was a serial killer.
Had Bluebeard not wanted his wife to find the bodies of his past wives he would not have given her the key and forbade her to use it. As we've discussed before, the belief at the time viewed all women as Pandora: if you give her a box and tell her not to open it, her very nature will not allow her to keep it closed.
Knowing this, Bluebeard could not have expected any other result when he left his wife in charge of the manor. Thus, one must assume that Bluebeard wanted her to betray him because he wanted to kill her. The simple fact that he kept the bodies of his dead wives, collected them as trophies, gives him something in common with the modern serial killer. Trophies allow the killer to remember and, to an extent, relive the glory of the murder.
Now, every serial killer's victims have something in common, and it isn't difficult to see what these women had in common, though we don't get any information on the women who all already dead. Each was likely very beautiful. They were also all greedy and foolish. They ignored the warning sign that their husband was evil (his beard) and were taken in by his wealth. And all, except perhaps the first, betrayed him by using the key and finding his previous victims.
I don't doubt for an instant that when Bluebeard was young enough to be called Bluepeachfuzz, he was setting up animals to betray him so that he could justify killing them. He probably also wet the bed into his teens and had a domineering mother.
My opinion on that has always been a resounding yes. Of course he did. Bluebeard was playing a twisted game with his wife, as, one assumes, he did with all of his wives. He lured them in with money, used their own curiosity against them, and then butchered them for his own amusement. He was a serial killer.
Had Bluebeard not wanted his wife to find the bodies of his past wives he would not have given her the key and forbade her to use it. As we've discussed before, the belief at the time viewed all women as Pandora: if you give her a box and tell her not to open it, her very nature will not allow her to keep it closed.
Knowing this, Bluebeard could not have expected any other result when he left his wife in charge of the manor. Thus, one must assume that Bluebeard wanted her to betray him because he wanted to kill her. The simple fact that he kept the bodies of his dead wives, collected them as trophies, gives him something in common with the modern serial killer. Trophies allow the killer to remember and, to an extent, relive the glory of the murder.
Now, every serial killer's victims have something in common, and it isn't difficult to see what these women had in common, though we don't get any information on the women who all already dead. Each was likely very beautiful. They were also all greedy and foolish. They ignored the warning sign that their husband was evil (his beard) and were taken in by his wealth. And all, except perhaps the first, betrayed him by using the key and finding his previous victims.
I don't doubt for an instant that when Bluebeard was young enough to be called Bluepeachfuzz, he was setting up animals to betray him so that he could justify killing them. He probably also wet the bed into his teens and had a domineering mother.
Jul 28, 2010
Bluebeard Series: Deranged Serial Killer or Betrayed Husband? Part 1.
A young woman marries an ugly, but kind nobleman only to discover that he has murdered his numerous wives and she is going to be his next victim. Luckily for her, she is saved by deus ex machina in the form of her two brothers, a dragoon and a musketeer, inherits her husband's estate and lives happily ever after with husband number two.
But did she deserve her happily ever after?
Bluebeard was not Perrault's only tale about a beautiful woman who marries an ugly man, but the two stories have very different messages. In Beauty and the Beast, the heroine is able to look past the Beast's exterior and love the man beneath it. In Bluebeard, the heroine ignores the outward appearance of her husband at her own peril. One story warns young women not to judge a man solely on his appearance, the other warns to beware a man who proudly displays his villainy.
The stories seem similar on the surface, but there are a few key differences between them. The first being the motivations of the heroines. Beauty came to the Beast to save her father, and truly fell in love with him. Bluebeard's wife fell in love with his wealth, the parties he threw and the fine things he could buy. It was his money that made his appearance bearable to her, not his personality.
In fact, Bluebeard purposefully cultivated ugliness, both interior and exterior. After all, his beard is the only feature mentioned as being unattractive. It seems odd then that the man, so desperately in want of a wife but finding his ugly beard a hindrance to this endeavor, did not shave.
In addition to her greedy nature, Bluebeard's wife committed another sin of virtue for the time: Disobedience. He told her not to use that key or go into that room.
Characters of other fairy tales who disobeyed a person of authority (and, let's face it girls, at the time this story was written, husbands were very much an authority figure), may still have received their happily ever after, but at a greater cost. Even Cinderella stayed completely obedient to that wicked step-mother of hers until a supernatural manifestation of another authority figure (her true mother) stepped in and gave her permission to go to that ball.
Obedience was a highly prized trait in a wife, and fairy tale heroines who displayed it were rewarded. Even if they suffered mightily for it. Now the tales of Perrault were often geared toward young women of a marrying age, as cautionary tales in choosing a husband, such as Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast, being obedient and meek, like Cinderella, or avoiding the social death of premarital sex, like Little Red Riding Hood.
So, the question remains, did Bluebeard's wife deserve to live happily ever after when she displayed such a lack of virtue? The modern woman would say yes, that a wife has a right to know what her husband is hiding in the closet, but the women of the seventeenth century for which this tale was written might not have agreed so readily.
Given the morality of the times, Bluebeard's wife acted inappropriately, and while killing her might have been a little extreme, she is not as obviously deserving of her happy ending as heroines like Cinderella. That said, it was commonly believed at the time that women were dangerously curious creatures, and Bluebeard did give her the temptation of the key. Did he want her to find his dead wives so that he could kill her? That is a post for another day.
But did she deserve her happily ever after?
Bluebeard was not Perrault's only tale about a beautiful woman who marries an ugly man, but the two stories have very different messages. In Beauty and the Beast, the heroine is able to look past the Beast's exterior and love the man beneath it. In Bluebeard, the heroine ignores the outward appearance of her husband at her own peril. One story warns young women not to judge a man solely on his appearance, the other warns to beware a man who proudly displays his villainy.
The stories seem similar on the surface, but there are a few key differences between them. The first being the motivations of the heroines. Beauty came to the Beast to save her father, and truly fell in love with him. Bluebeard's wife fell in love with his wealth, the parties he threw and the fine things he could buy. It was his money that made his appearance bearable to her, not his personality.
In fact, Bluebeard purposefully cultivated ugliness, both interior and exterior. After all, his beard is the only feature mentioned as being unattractive. It seems odd then that the man, so desperately in want of a wife but finding his ugly beard a hindrance to this endeavor, did not shave.
In addition to her greedy nature, Bluebeard's wife committed another sin of virtue for the time: Disobedience. He told her not to use that key or go into that room.
Characters of other fairy tales who disobeyed a person of authority (and, let's face it girls, at the time this story was written, husbands were very much an authority figure), may still have received their happily ever after, but at a greater cost. Even Cinderella stayed completely obedient to that wicked step-mother of hers until a supernatural manifestation of another authority figure (her true mother) stepped in and gave her permission to go to that ball.
Obedience was a highly prized trait in a wife, and fairy tale heroines who displayed it were rewarded. Even if they suffered mightily for it. Now the tales of Perrault were often geared toward young women of a marrying age, as cautionary tales in choosing a husband, such as Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast, being obedient and meek, like Cinderella, or avoiding the social death of premarital sex, like Little Red Riding Hood.
So, the question remains, did Bluebeard's wife deserve to live happily ever after when she displayed such a lack of virtue? The modern woman would say yes, that a wife has a right to know what her husband is hiding in the closet, but the women of the seventeenth century for which this tale was written might not have agreed so readily.
Given the morality of the times, Bluebeard's wife acted inappropriately, and while killing her might have been a little extreme, she is not as obviously deserving of her happy ending as heroines like Cinderella. That said, it was commonly believed at the time that women were dangerously curious creatures, and Bluebeard did give her the temptation of the key. Did he want her to find his dead wives so that he could kill her? That is a post for another day.
Jul 27, 2010
Let me introduce myself
Once upon a time, during my quest to complete my university education, I had the great luck to take an English class that dealt with fairy tales. For four months we engaged in hot debates about what message each tale tried to convey, what elements were necessary for a retelling of a particular fairy tale, and who did it better: The Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Anderson, Perrault, or Walt Disney?
No other class could match this one for sheer fun. I sped through the readings, often reading ahead, and for once in my academic career, I actively engaged in class discussions. Fairy tales brought out a passion in me that I lacked for my chosen field of study (psychology), and so it's no wonder that they heavily influence the novels I write. Now I'd like to share some of the lessons from that class, or at least, my takes on the lessons from that class with the world.
The first tale I'll tackle, since my current novel deals with it, is Bluebeard, a lovely, cautionary tale about a man who kills his wives.
Happy reading.
No other class could match this one for sheer fun. I sped through the readings, often reading ahead, and for once in my academic career, I actively engaged in class discussions. Fairy tales brought out a passion in me that I lacked for my chosen field of study (psychology), and so it's no wonder that they heavily influence the novels I write. Now I'd like to share some of the lessons from that class, or at least, my takes on the lessons from that class with the world.
The first tale I'll tackle, since my current novel deals with it, is Bluebeard, a lovely, cautionary tale about a man who kills his wives.
Happy reading.
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