FF Thursday September 15

(Katie Redmiles) At the start of class today, we mentioned how the story of Bluebeard, similar to the story of Beauty and the Beast can be compared to the old myth of Cupid and Psyche, as well as Pandora and her box. This of course sparked a discussion about whether or not the moral of the tale was criticizing women’s curiosity or male violence. For women’s curiosity it was said that based on the actual language of the moral, with it stating “women succumb, but it’s a fleeting pleasure; as soon as you satisfy it, it ceases to be. And it always proves to be very, very costly” (148). The point was also made that though the second moral was discussing men’s roles in a marriage that it could also be used as an argument that the moral of the story was women’s curiosity is to be feared, for it is almost a disclaimer to men, still reprimanding women’s disobedience. Yet, many good arguments were made for the idea that Bluebeard was a tale to portray male violence and all its cruelty. For instance, it was said that even though the women were first punished for their disobedience, they all ended up having happy endings, whereas the sadistic men in the stories ended up dead. Of course, taking into consideration Perrault’s personality as shown through his work, some believed that his story did not have an original moral at all and just came up with one for show. The discussion then moved into discussing the differences present in the two stories, “Bluebeard” and “Fitcher’s Egg”. The most prominent difference was the two heroines. In Perrault’s “Bluebeard” the heroine takes action in attempt to rescue herself from the clutches of her sociopathic husband, but passively since it is her brothers who ultimately kill Bluebeard leading to her release. Whereas, the heroine in Grimm’s tale not only outsmarts the villain, but brings back the lives of her sister and thwarts the evil sorcerer by once again playing a trick on him. It is clear which one is the passive heroine and active one. Finally we discussed the modernized version, “Bluebeard’s Egg” by Margaret Atwood. There was definitely a consensus that Sally, the narrator of the story, was severely insecure and paranoid. She is obsessed with her surgeon husband, but is always craving affirmation that he loves her as well. With this, it is clear that she is more like the wife in Bluebeard, a passive heroine in so many words. As pointed out in discussion, there is a clear power imbalance between the couple, the classic “cinder girl” versus “prince” syndrome, but the realization of this is eating Sally from the inside out. Then towards the end of discussion the possibility of the egg imagery being connected to Sally came up, almost like the egg was her heart, and when it opens her true nature will show.