Bluebeard

Bluebeard is the title character in a famous fairy tale about a dangerous husband and a curious wife, a cautionary tale against the dangers of curiosity and feminine disobedience told by Charles Perrault.

Other versions

The Perrault version reappears retold in Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy book.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Operatic versions of the Bluebeard tale have been made by:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Hungarian composer Béla Bartók:Bluebeard's Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára), from a heavily psychosexual libretto by Béla Balázs;
• Paul Dukas, Ariane et Barbe-Bleue ("Ariane and Bluebeard"), also a psychological tale (to a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck), in a luxuriant chromatic polytonal post-Wagnerian idiom; and
• Jacques Offenbach, the operetta "Barbe Bleue", a lighter take on Duke Bluebeard's journey through multiple nuptials.

A "Bluebeard" is an eponym for a man who marries rich women and kills them for the inheritance. Charlie Chaplin's 1947 black comedy Monsieur Verdoux revolves around such a character.

Related Topics:
Eponym - Charlie Chaplin - 1947 - Black comedy - Monsieur Verdoux

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1979, Angela Carter published an updated version of the Bluebeard story, the eponymous story in her collection, The Bloody Chamber. Carter sets the story sometime between the World Wars, and writes a first person narrative from the perspective of the young wife. Her revision has feminist undertones that bring out the story's latent themes of domestic violence and predatory sexuality, and rescues its heroine from bland fairy-tale passivity.

Related Topics:
1979 - Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber - First person narrative - Feminist - Domestic violence

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Donald Barthelme also wrote a characteristically brief, surreal parody of the tale, set in 1910. Published first in The New Yorker, it was included later in the collection Forty Stories. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Bluebeard (1988), however, is only tangentially related to the folklore character.

Related Topics:
Donald Barthelme - 1910 - The New Yorker - Forty Stories - Kurt Vonnegut - Bluebeard - 1988

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bluebeard is an important character in the Fables comic book series. He is portrayed as ostensibly reformed, having had to leave his homeland for our world to escape a conqueror; however, he is still much like his old self beneath his urbane appearance, and uses his wealth to manipulate his fellow "Fables."

Related Topics:
Fables - Comic book - Wealth

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~