The Opies note that the only magic element in this story is the magic key, and Gellert reports that this motif, and the forbidden chamber, are the only two elements drawn from earlier popular traditions.  This might suggest that “Bluebeard” is actually an original story by Perrault, with some folklore motifs written in - as Andersen and others would do later.  But there are analogs to the story in other traditions.  The English story, “Mr. Fox,” included in Jacobs’s English Fairy Tales, bears many similarities to "Bluebeard";  Jacobs’s note traces the story he used to a 1790 publication, which still does not rule out Perrault's originality, but there is also an allusion to the tale in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing to support its earlier existence in the oral tradition.  Another variant may be the Grimms’ “Robber Bridegroom.”
        It has been suggested that Perrault's story has a historical basis.  The character of Bluebeard has been linked to the figure of one Gilles de Rais (1404-40), a French contemporary of Joan of Arc who was accused of heresy and multiple murder (supposedly, he killed 140 people) leading to his execution.  However, the Opies note that he had only one wife, who survived him, that his beard was red not blue, and that, like Jeffrey Daumer, his victims were young boys, not women.  They offer another candidate: Comorre the Cursed (ca. 500), about whom a legend similar to the Bluebeard tale was told.  The Perrault story was linked to the Comorre legend (from Brittany) soon after Perrault’s death.
        Whatever the historical basis, the story has also picked up elements that are common in Western tradition - specifically, the issue of the curious female.  The bride’s antecedents are Eve, of course, and also Pandora - emblems of female curiosity unleashing evil consequences on the world.  In this story, the evil consequences fall to the maiden - but a reasonable question is, to what extent is she actually culpable?  This story is the flip side of “Beauty and the Beast” - if that story is about overcoming the repulsion of the male body to arrive at an appropriate adult relationship, “Bluebeard” is about the horror that lies beneath an (apparently) beautiful surface.
The story has a macabre fascination and has been subject to extensive re-imagining in the modern period (most notably in Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"), primarily because it supports feminist contentions about gender oppression.
         Tatar notes that Perrault's story departs from various folk versions, in which the heroine is capable of saving herself from the Bluebeard figure.  Here, she is more passive and must wait for her brothers to rescue her.  Perrault also emphasizes the heroine's curiosity, thus aligning her with the cultural figures mentioned above, and distracting attention from the villain's culpability; as she suggests, the bloody key is not so much a mark of the wife's disobedience as it is an indicator that the husband is not to be trusted (151).
         This tale’s emphasis on life after marriage “serves as a reminder that fairy tales and folktales were rooted in an adult culture” (Tatar 146).  (In this regard, see also the endings of "Sol, Luna, e Talia" and "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.")
 

Return to Fairy Tale Page