Bluebeard

Though a marriage is the central relationship in “Blue Beard,” it deviates from the majority of fairy tales in that this marriage is neither the solution nor the conclusion to the conflict of the story. Instead, it is the source of danger, highlighting the vulnerability of women under Patriarchal Control. At its core, the story is about a bride who ignores her husband’s wishes for privacy and discovers that he is a serial killer, igniting his desire to kill her, too. Though Perrault did not invent the story of “Blue Beard,” his version remains prominent due to the stylistic choices he made.

Perrault’s primary tool in writing this fiction is suspense, specifically created by mysterious details, delays, and foreshadowing. As the conflict between Blue Beard and his wife is not introduced until a fourth of the way into the narrative, the reader’s interest is captured not by plot but by the symbolic strength of the unnatural, “ugly and frightful” (70) blue beard, as well as the ominous phrasing “no one knew what had become of them” (70) in reference to Blue Beard’s former wives.

Though Perrault uses concision to great effect overall, at every pivotal moment occurs sudden verbosity or repetition to increase tension through delay. The enumeration of what key opens what store of treasure takes almost a paragraph, lulling the reader until Blue Beard declares, “[y]ou may open everything, you may go everywhere, but I forbid you to enter this little room” (71). Like the young bride, the reader begins to be drawn through the tale out of a desire to know what is in the secret space—but this too is delayed by another account of visitors who “could not admire enough the profusion and magnificence of the tapestries” and “frame of silver and gilt lacquer, that were the most superb and beautiful things that had ever been seen” (72). Again, the heroine acts as stand-in for the reader, “deriv[ing] little amusement from the sight of all these riches, the reason being that she was impatient to go and inspect the little room” (72). The visual description of the contents of the murder chamber is even briefly delayed by the very mundane detail of the young wife’s eyes needing to adjust to the dim light.

It too is unnecessary to the progress of the story that Blue Beard’s wife at first leaves the little key in her room, forcing her husband to request it specifically, but this slowing of the moment allows Perrault to depict his protagonist’s terror through her “so trembling a hand” (74). The most notable exercise in suspense is the long exchange between Sister Anne and the young bride, as the latter desperately tries to delay her execution by Blue Beard in the hopes that her brothers will arrive. Sister Anne repeats the poetic phrase “I see nought but dust in the sun and the green grass growing” (75) twice, followed by a jarring humorous moment where a promising dust cloud is reported as “but a flock of sheep” (76). Even under the shadow of the cutlass, Blue Beard’s wife “beg[s] for a brief moment in which to collect her thoughts” (76).

From this point, the end of “Blue Beard” is abrupt and pragmatic, with the brothers slaying the villain in one blow and the entire family’s fortunes being tidied up in the final paragraph. This concision is reminiscent of the adventure and horror genres, but the Gothic Imagery and the magical blood-stained key still place the story squarely as a fairy tale. In the Aarne-Thompson index, an often-quoted scholarly reference that assigns numerically cataloged types to fairy tales that share certain qualities, “Blue Beard” has its own entry as number 312, under the 300 level grouping of “Tales of Magic.”

In addition to being the central symbol in Perrault’s tale, the supernatural key is the crux of its plot. Even through the domestically coded labor of scrubbing, The Key cannot be made clean, Blue Beard learns of his wife’s defiance. The key records that the young bride has gained a Transgressive Knowledge she was not supposed to have and cannot unlearn, which represents her loss of innocence, “virginity,” respect for her husband’s sovereignty, and more. The description of the key is the most Perrault lingers on a single object or visual in “Blue Beard,” and the language is layered with metaphorical significance:

Noticing that the key of the little room was stained with blood, she wiped it two or three times. But the blood did not go. She washed it well, and even rubbed it with sand and grit. Always the blood remained. For the key was bewitched, and there was no means of cleaning it completely. When the blood was removed from one side, it reappeared on the other (73).

Both the repeated description of the heroine’s investigation as “disobedience” (73, 75) and the first moral in verse’s damnation of curiosity compound the key’s significance in showing a woman’s downfall tends to be permanent. Yet, the conclusion of the narrative challenges this, rewarding the young bride for her detective work by placing her in the position of the most power at the end as “mistress of all [Blue Beard’s] wealth” (77), which she then uses to ensure a favorable future for each of her siblings. Indeed, though for most of the story this female protagonist is vulnerable to her husband, when examining the structure of “Blue Beard” it becomes clear that every event in the tale happens as the result of this young woman’s actions, conferring upon her a great amount of agency. Thus, Perrault simultaneously places the young bride as a nameless young female character trapped by a monstrous man and as a dynamic force that drives the action to the point of halting a serial killer.

As it is therefore possible to read “Blue Beard” as a warning against marriage, Perrault includes the second moral in verse at the end of the story so as not to create a social scandal within his 17th-century readership. He implies that men are only tyrants in history, whereas in contemporary couples, the wife is the one with more power, though he also lingers on a description of the bad behavior possible for husbands that may counter his point:

No longer is the husband so terrifying,

Demanding the impossible,

Being both dissatisfied and jealous;

In the presence of his wife he now is gracious enough,

And not matter what colour his beard may be

One does not have to guess who is master! (78).

Due to Perrault’s use of contrasting descriptors, morals, and symbols, there are many ways to interpret the meaning of “Blue Beard.” As a result, it has been studied and adapted consistently since its first publication in 1697. Though the thematic intent behind the text is open for debate, the balancing of concision and repetition in addition to the arresting imagery make it undeniable that the chief purpose of Perrault’s fairy tale was to entertain.