Bluebeard

Fairytales awaken human’s imagination and praise the prize that will go to those who are patient, hard-working, honest, and they tell us about people’s personalities which make us think if the people we believe in re worthy of our friendship and care.

The moral of this story is that what you see isn’t always what you get and that we shouldn’t be judging people based on their appearance. We have to be wise and pick the people we’ll trust. Bluebeard seems like a good and thoughtful man at first, but in the end, he turns out to be evil and calculated.

On the other side, Bluebeard wanted to test his wife’s obedience so he told her not to go into the locked room because she will be punished. She didn’t listen, and he had to keep his threat.

Genre: fairytale

Time: once upon a time

Place: Bluebeard’s houses

Book Summary

Once upon a time a man with a blue beard lived. He was very rich and owned many carriages, house, silver and gold dishware and pricy furniture. Despite all of his money, women were scared of him because of the beard.

A young woman lived in the neighborhood, and she had two beautiful daughters. Bluebeard asked one of them to marry him, and the mother decided which one goes to him. Unfortunately, neither one of them wanted to become his wife because they knew he was previously married but nobody knew what had happened to his wives.

Bluebeard thought it would be nice to prepare a gathering in one of his country houses and he decided to invite the mother and her daughters and some of his acquaintances. Everyone agreed to come. When they arrived at the house, they enjoyed delicious meals, went fishing and then danced and sang. Everything was perfect, so the girls’ mother agreed to let Bluebeard marry one of her daughters because she thought he wasn’t such a bad man after all.

After a month Bluebeard went on a trip. He told his wife to enjoy his absence with her friends. He left her the keys and asked her not to enter the smallest room in the house because if she does, he will get very angry.

His wife promised to obey, and he went peacefully to his trip.

Her friends came to the house, even those uninvited. They went to explore the house and concluded that they couldn’t conclude which one of his houses was prettier. It was the first time they visited his house because they were scared of him.

They stopped in the biggest room filled with luxury furniture, dishware, and a big couch. They couldn’t stop admiring the house, and they felt envy because their friend got to enjoy all of that beautiful stuff. She wasn’t precisely thrilled about any of it because of the little prohibited room was now on her mind.

She couldn’t resist it, so she left her friends and ran down the stairs to unlock the room. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t withstand the temptation.

She opened the doors, and because it was dark, she couldn’t see anything. She noticed a puddle of blood and bodies stacked one next to the other. They were Bluebeard's ex-wives. She was terrified. She wanted to run out of the room, but she dropped the key into a puddle of blood. She managed to leave the room somehow, but she had to clean the key before Bluebeard came home from his trip.

She came to her room to rest and wash the key, but the problem is, it was magical. When she washed the blood from one side, it would appear on the other.

Bluebeard came back home that same night. His wife faked to be very happy about his early arrival.

The next day he asked for the keys he had given her, but her hands were so shaky that he knew immediately what she had done. He realized the little room’s key was missing so he ordered her to bring it. The woman said she forgot it in her room. He saw the blood stains on the key.

The woman had a terrible destiny upon her. He told her she had to die for what she had seen. The woman fell to her knees and begged for forgiveness and begged him to spare her life but his heart was made out of stone. The woman felt sorry for everything and before he killed her she asked him to let her pray.

Bluebeard left her alone for a few minutes to pray. She called her sister and told her to get on the top of the tower and see if her brothers, who promised to visit today, are indeed arriving. The sister saw only the sun and the meadow. The woman asked her a few more times does she see the brothers until her sister finally said they were coming. The woman waited for her brothers while Bluebeard threatened to kill her.

He lost all patience and ordered her to come out so he could do what needs to be done. The woman, scared and shaky, kneeled in front of him begging him to wait a bit more. He was getting more and more impatient and told her she must die now.

At that moment her brothers arrived and stabbed Bluebeard with a sword. He wanted to run away because he knew they were very strong, young man but he couldn’t. The woman barely survived from all the fear.

She inherited all that he had and shared it with her brothers and sister and the rest she saved for herself. In the end, she married and honest man who helped her move on from her difficult past.

Characters: Bluebeard, wife, sister, brothers

Characters Analysis

Bluebeard - he looks like a good, but in reality, he is a vicious man. He was incredibly wealthy and switched wives often, and everyone was afraid of him due to his beard. In the end, he dies for trying to kill his wife, and she gets all of the inheritance.

Wife - a good girl whose curiosity almost got her killed. She trusted her husband until the moment he told her not to enter one room in the house. If she hadn’t done it, maybe she would have been spared, but Bluebeard warned her she would be punished if she disobeys. She couldn’t resist the temptation, and she did what he forbid her to do. Luckily her brothers came in time to save her.

Charles Perrault Biography

Charles Perrault (1628. - 1703.) was born in Paris to a wealthy family as the seventh child. His father was very strict and imposed a particular kind of education upon him, so he decided to study law. When he finished school, he got a job in the public service.

Many consider him to be the founder of the most popular genre between children, and those are the fairytales. He took his inspiration out of folks tales. Some of them were carried mouth to mouth, and the Grimm brothers told some of them. The fairytales that Charles made famous: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Puss in Boots.

This famous writer from France published another interesting book and it is Tales of Mother Goose. It consisted out of 8 fairytales.

Charles published this work under the name of his son. His fairytales were so popular that they were screen and TV adapted. The first fairytale The Sleeping Beauty was published in 1969.

Charles was considered to be one of the most influential people in the 17th century and a fighter for the younger generations. A conflict was going on back then between the old who believed that people should stick to the traditional way of writing and the young who were fighting for a new, fresh way of writing.