Question 2

Once again I am going to concentrate on the Grimm tales (I just found them more interesting than the other tales) However I will be making a slight detour and also looking at Thackeray's version of the Bluebeard story. Also as an aside, does anyone else find it interesting that the author of "Vanity Fair" wrote a fairy tale? I guess it makes sense though - they are both commentaries on culture and society.
Anyhow... back to the point at hand - the heroines of the Bluebeard tales. I believe in the Grimm's versions of the tale - the women are just that. Heroines. In "Fitcher's Bird" the third sister cannot be outwitted by the sorcerer. She has her suspicions about him - why on earth for instance would he want her to carry an egg as she explored her soon to be home? So she leaves the egg behind and then begins he exploration. As soon as she sees her sisters' mutilated bodies, she does not panic but begins to collect together their body parts and put them in order. She then carefully orchestrates an escape for both her and resurrected sisters. However the Grimms do make a note of differentiating between the third sister and her two older sisters. The third is described as "clever and crafty" whereas the other two were simply led astray by their curiosity... and as we all know 'curiosity killed the cat' (or in this case the sisters.)
Even in "The Robber Bridegroom," women are depicted as strong and crafty. Even though the old woman has been in the cellar for a long time, she plans to save both herself and our heroine, and carefully manipulates the robbers into doing her bidding. When the finger flies behind the hogshead she convinces them to not search there, where they would undoubtedly find the girl, saying: "Leave off looking til the morning, the finger won't run away from you." Using common sense, she saves the life of both her and the girl. The girl herself is also crafty and brave. She tells the story of the gory death of the other girl at the hands of her bridegroom, pretending all the time that she "only dreamt this." She then whips out the severed finger (which must have been disgusting to keep) to prove the truth of her tale. She saves herself from certain death.
Thackeray's version of the tale though is rather different. Fatima Bluebeard is rather foolish in my opinion, completely blinded by her love of her husband. She cannot see that he has done anything wrong - she believes that he wouldn't hurt a fly, even when her sister Anna pulls out the Bible to show her all the deaths of his previous wives.
So from these tales, it is clear that women should be crafty and clever - willing to be brave - and should not always rely on others for help. For in the Bluebeard stories, it is these women that live to tell the tale and become our heroines.

Horror in Fairy tales

This set of fairy tales is much more gruesome and bloody and much more likely to be made into a horror movie instead of a cutesy Disney movie than any of the others we have read in previous weeks. (Apart from perhaps 'The Juniper Tree' - which had a similar gruesome death scene - a little boy's head being chopped off by the lid of a box...) Each Bluebeard tale depicts the horror in slightly different ways and some tales are more graphic in their depictions then others. However it is the tales of the Brothers Grimm that are the most graphic - in fact they are so graphic that as I was reading their tales, I felt a little ill. In "The Robber Bridegroom," the suspense is built throughout the story - from the girl being betrothed to an unknown man, to the ashes - a symbol of destruction - leading her to the house, to the bird singing the song:
Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear,
'Tis a murderer's house you enter here."
The robbers are particularly brutal in their killing of the girl and as we see it through our heroine's eyes (as she watches from behind a giant hogshead) it seems all the more real. We hear the girl's "screams and lamentations" as she is cut open and her wounds salted as she is prepared to be eaten.
In the 'Fitcher's Bird" the secret room is also quite gorily described - a basin of blood sitting in the middle of the room, filled with cut up mangled human body parts. This story is also perhaps more scary as the third sister discovers her older sisters among the remains. She knows the Bluebeard figure's victims personally, and decides to pull them out of the bloody basin to unite them. Yuck...
The other Bluebeard tales are also gruesome - just not as graphic as the Grimm tales. Even though the deaths of the seven wives are described in "The Seven Wives of Bluebeard" the descriptions are much more clinical "She drowned etc." and do not fill me with the same amount of disgust.
I can't really imagine Walt Disney making a Bluebeard movie - if he did, either the essence of the tale would be lost, or it would be an R rated Disney film - an oxymoron if ever I heard one.

On The importance of the item "Bluebeard" gives "Sally" in building the sense of horror (Q1)

Just kidding! This blog is going to psychoanalyze the sense out of the specific "terrible places" that appear in different versions of the story. Lets begin with a thorough examination of Perrault's Bluebeard. When Sally walks into the forbidden room, "At first she saw nothing, for the windows were closed. After a few moments, she began to realize that the floor was covered with clotted blood and that the blood reflected the bodies of several dead women hung up on the walls (these were all the women Bluebeard had married and then murdered one after another)." Call me twisted, but I didn't exactly cringe as I read this the first time. I blame rap music and Hulu (its an evil plot, to take over the world). I am going to overlook the fact that clotted blood (think scabs) is very non-reflective. I know the first phrase mentions how the windows were closed. But if the blood is reflective, it is obviously as light as day in Bluebeard's rumpus room. This room serves a very important function in the story as entering this room is apparently punishable by death. It is an important part of moving the plot along. But I think I see a boom mike hanging in the background. Final verdict? This room is messy, and a little surprising as we didn't expect to run into his ex-wives, but not really scary. Its shocking at best. From a psychoanalytical perspective, Bluebeard obviously has a tattoo of Blake's Red Dragon on his back.

Compare that to Margaret Atwood's "Bluebeard's Egg." Bluebeard's forbidden chamber in this story is much more Utopian, and I mean that in the true "no place" sense of the word. Tartar will beck me up on this one. Atwood deliberately changed "the forbidden chamber of Bluebeard's castle into everything from Ed's enigmatic mind and his "new facility" to the anatomical cavities of the human heart and the keyhole desk before which Ed betrays his sexual infidelity." I think Atwood is trying to do too much with too little in this story. One thing she doesn't even attempt is horror. What I thought might have been suspense at the beginning turned out to just be bad writing from the 1980s. Where is the horror? Where is the blood? Ed isn't turning these women into hats, he is only using them as sexual objects. Foxnews is guilty of that! I think one could argue that portraying the "terrible place" like this, even if it is horror free, is an important function in the story. But I don't see it. And if Ed's sexual infidelity is the scary part of the story, then Desperate Housewives probably didn't belong in prime time. From a psychoanalytic prospective, I worry Ed hates his father and wants to eat his mother because he thinks she is his sister.

But forgive Ed his faults, and examine the "terrible place" in the Grimms' "The Robber Bridegroom." In this story, the castle is empty. In the basement, the setting of the "terrible place," we have one old woman (the staple of robber's dens), a large barrel, a pot of hot water, a table, some wine, a little salt, and at least one chopping instrument. Did I mention we are in a cellar? SCARY! Perfect horror props. We also get to witness a gruesome murder complete with flying body parts. The best part about this story is the level of gruesomeness is not the most important part. Sure, Sally needs the evidence of a finger and a eyewitness account for her story to hold up in court. But to me this tale seems to be more about how Sally saves the day for herself by getting out of a sticky situation. So while the actions that take place help move the plot along, the level of description (and horror) it looks like they are just elements to elaborate and entertain the audience. And it is obvious from a psychoanalytic perspective that Sally is afraid of water. I am proud of her for being able to overcome that.

Song of the blog: "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. Mostly for the gunshot noises.

Sometimes sassy, always clever (Q2)

Depending on what I was thinking about beforehand (Tartar's interpretation, what my snack will be tonight, etc...) I am able to see the female role in "Bluebeard" stories as either as a celebration of self-preservation and cleverness or as a disobedient female. But, specifically in The Grimm Brothers' "The Robber Bridegroom," I see the girl, whom I will henceforth call Sally (as an homage to the name sassy Sally, a title which any girl who can stomach having a severed finger fall in her lap and then carry it home to convict her fiance obviously deserves) as a celebration of self preservation and cleverness.

Sally is framed as a girl who, if she is not actually smart, at least has good instincts. Even though the suitor passed the "parent test", Sally still "didn't care for him as a girl should care for her betrothed, and she didn't trust him." Sally is clever enough to know something just isn't quite right with Buffalo Bluebeard (Silence of the Lambs reference; lets see if this theme resurfaces in post number 2 (Q1)). Sally also "made excuses and claimed she couldn't find the way" to Bluebeard's house, trying everything she had at her disposal to try and get out of this. When all of her efforts don't work and she is forced to go visit anyway, Sally again makes a great move towards self-preservation by being inspired to take peas and lentils with her to mark her way. She is luckier than Hansel and Gretel, because instead of birds eating these tasty morsels they sprout in the interim to lead her home. While Sally cannot exactly be credited with being clever here, because she did this "without knowing why," she still gets points for self-preservation.

I don't fault Sally for not taking the caged bird's warning at face value and running away. If I ever get a parrot, that phrase will be one of the first things I teach it to say. What impresses me most about the whole story is her ability to play it cool when the robbers come in. Again, it does not display her cleverness, but it does showcase her obvious black belt in self-preservation. The old woman tells her to hide and she does what she is told, ducking behind a big barrel. Would I have found her? Yes. But she isn't working with much (remember how empty the castle is) and I am excellent at hide-and-seek. Once behind the barrel, Sally is told "Don't stir and don't move or it'll be the end of you," and for once in fairy tales, Sally is able to do as she is told. So much so that even after she has sat in silent horror as she watched the robbers drug, strip, dismember, and salt one of her less-clever classmates she is still undetected. Even when a dismembered finger complete with the best cracker-jack prize ring ever falls into her lap, she can keep quiet.

Sally escapes, mostly from the fact that she is lucky enough to be Irish as far as I can tell. When her ax-murderer fiance arrives to celebrate the wedding, she entertains him by talking about her "dream." But clever Sally really just retells her experience at the bachelor pad. Sally is apparently as clever as Hamlet, and Hamlet is regarded as a pretty clever guy. She catches him by monitoring his reaction, the robber "turned white as a ghost while she was telling the story." Bingo-bango, clever Sally has all the evidence she needs to get Bluebeard locked up and passed off to the proper authorities.

Is Sally touted as clever from the beginning because of how well she does in spelling bees? Not exactly. But when you look at how she handles herself throughout the tale, it is pretty obvious that Sally is presented as clever and concerned with her self-preservation. And like all good stories, it ends in a public execution.


Song of the Blog "Heartless," by Kayne West. I'll bet Bluebeard feels this way about Sally.

Question #2

In “The Robber Bridegroom” by the Brothers Grimm, the cleverness of the heroine’s character shines through at the wedding celebration when she reveals what she knows about the true character of her bridegroom, even though she reassures her finance “My dear, I must have been dreaming all this.” Having possessed all the desirable traits for a bride-to-be, she finally sets herself free when “confesses” that what she knows to be true by saying “And here is the ring with the finger.” Without being disobedient, the young maiden frees herself through her cleverness and initial intuition.

Question #1

One of the elements of horror in Perrault’s version was Bluebeard’s past - his numerous wives who disappeared and were nowhere to be found. This made an eerie impression on the women of the town, especially his future wife, whom was disgusted by this. Her initial concern is the foreshadowing of her almost death, in which Bluebeard’s true colors come to surface. In comparison to Thackeray’s “Bluebeard’s Ghost,” the wife loves her husband that much more because of the death of his wives. As she tries to prove to her sister Anne through the family Bible, that all of Bluebeard’s wives died of natural causes, she reaffirms her love for her deceased husband. She even implores Anne, stating that “Every one of the women are calendared in this delightful, this pathetic, this truly virtuous and tender way; and can you suppose that a man who wrote such sentiments could be a murderer, miss?” Although it is seen as “horror” in the Perrault version, Bluebeard’s six previous wives in the Thackeray story showcases the “hero” Bluebeard truly is.

Clever heroine

In Joseph Jacob’s Mr. Fox, I believe that the main woman character in the story, Lady Mary, is actually made out to be clever rather than disobedient. First of all, there is not prohibition that Lady Mary shouldn’t enter a certain room or go to a certain place. Mr. Fox describes his castle where they will live and the story simply says, “but, strange to say, did not ask her or her brothers to come and see it.” But he also does not say to NOT go see it, so Lady Mark goes and when seeing the castle decides to enter. Also the sign at the gate instructs her to “Be bold, be bold” which if I were to see, would make me think I was supposed to enter the castle. Then again the signs continue on to say “but not too bold” but still this does not caution Lady Mary from entering the castle, so she is not being disobedient.
Once inside the castle Lady Mary witnesses the murder done by her groom to be, Mr. Fox, and how he chops off the hand of the woman in order to get at a ring. The hand flies off and Lady Mark retrieves it while hiding so Mr. Fox does not know she is there or where the hand has gone. The next day, Lady Mary shows her true cleverness as she is able to reveal the true murderous identity of Mr. Fox from telling a “dream” at breakfast about her trip to the castle. She then brings out the hand at the end to show that it indeed was not a dream and Mr. Fox suffers his punishment. Lady Mary’s actions of telling her story through the dream, just like the girl in “The Robber’s Bridegroom,” is very clever because she tells it in public and then shows her proof so that her evil fiancée will not be able to escape. Never does she truly disobey her man and is therefore not punished. Rather, the heroine is presented as outgoing and clever, and it is her slight bit of boldness and independence that allows her to save herself from her murdering fiancé.

Horror elements

I thought each story that we read had different aspects of horror. Overall, I thought that Perrault’s version of Bluebeard was the least scary as the only real aspect of horror it had was the key and the room with the dead girls. The key becomes bloodied and is the evidence that the girl has wondered into the forbidden room, this is the same in the Grimm’s version of the story but with the egg rather than the key. Though in Perrault’s version, after she has dropped the key he simply says “Prepare to die” and he never kills her and you never read about the gruesome deaths of the other two. Yet in the Grimm’s version of “Fitcher’s Bride” the death of the other wives is described rather brutally. This could tie into the fact that Tatar had said that the Grimm’s appeared to like making their stories more violent. In this story it reads, “He threw her down, dragged her in by the hair, chopped her head off the block, and hacked her into pieces so that her blood flowed all over the floor” This is clearly a very graphic passage and a great example of horror reading. Some of the other stories also give in detail the description of hacking up the women victims. For example in Grimm’s “The Robber Bridegroom” the death of the woman is extremely graphic and horrifying. I had to cringe as I read the passage in which the drunken robbers “paid no attention to her screams and sobs” and ripped off her clothes and proceeded to eat her with salt. The image of the finger then being chopped off, which the hiding girl takes as evidence, is also grotesque and could easily be pictured in a horror film. The mutilation of bodies as it compares to startling the audience and providing horrifying images is much more severe in the other stories compared to that of Perrault’s original version of Bluebeard.

Assignment: 24 March 2009

Since class had to be cut short today, there will be two posts for this evening.

Question 1: Compare the elements of horror in the various versions of Bluebeard that you read for today. Please name the elements you are comparing and discuss how they function in the story. Do they help move the plot along? Elaborate the story? Startle the audience? etc.

Question 2: Tatar offers two readings of the heroine’s character: either as a celebration of self-preservation and cleverness or as a disobedient female. Using a version other than the Perrault, consider how the heroine gets presented. Use quotes to support your reading.

Again, please post two separate entries by midnight tonight.