Editing Bluebeard (section)

==Commentaries==
[[File:The sleeping beauty picture book - containing The sleeping beauty, Bluebeard, The baby's own alphabet (1911) (14592970659).jpg|thumb|The Wife is given the keys of the house. Illustration by Walter Crane]]
[[File:Walter Crane06.jpg|thumb|Bluebeard is slain in a woodcut by [[Walter Crane]]]]

The fatal effects of female curiosity have long been the subject of story and legend.  [[Pandora]] and [[Cupid and Psyche|Psyche]] are examples of women in mythic stories whose curiosity has dire consequences. In giving his wife the keys to his castle, Bluebeard is acting the part of the serpent of the biblical Paradise, and therefore of [[the devil]], and his wife the part of the victim held by the serpent's gaze.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bridgewater |first1=Patrick |title=The German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective |date=2013 |publisher=Rodopi |page=238}}</ref>

While some scholars interpret the Bluebeard story as a fable preaching obedience to wives (as [[Charles Perrault|Perrault]]'s moral suggests), [[folklorist]] [[Maria Tatar]] has suggested that the tale encourages women not to unquestioningly follow patriarchal rules. Women breaking men's rules in the fairy-tale can be seen as a metaphor for women breaking society's rules and being punished for their transgression.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jónsdóttir |first1=Margrét Snæfríður |title=Madam Has a Word to Say |url=https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/21033/1/Margret_BA_Madam_Has_a_Word_to_Say.pdf |website=Skemann.is}}</ref> The key can be seen as a sign of disobedience or transgression; it can also be seen as a sign that one should not trust their husband.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tatar |first1=Maria |title=The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/dec/28/classics.highereducation |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company| date=2002|location=New York}}</ref>

Tatar, however, does go on to speak of Bluebeard as something of a "[[Beauty and the Beast]]" narrative. The original Beauty and the Beast tale by [[Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont]] is said to be a story created to condition young women into the possibility of not only marriage, but marrying young, and to placate their fears of the implications of an older husband.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tatar |first1=Maria |title=Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World |date=2017 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0143111696 |pages=190}}</ref> It shows the beast as secretly compassionate, and someone meant to curb the intense sexual fear that young women have of marriage. Though "Beauty and the Beast" holds several similarities in Gothic imagery to "Bluebeard" (such as is shared with [[Cupid and Psyche]] as well, in the case of a mysterious captor, a looming castle, and a young, beautiful heroine), Tatar goes on to state that the latter tale lives on the entire opposite side of the spectrum: one in which, instead of female placation, the tale simply aggravates women's apprehension, confirming one's "worst fears about sex".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tatar |first1=Maria |title=Secrets Beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives |date=2004 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=New Jersey |isbn=0-691-11707-1 |pages=247}}</ref>

Jungian [[Analytical psychology|psychoanalyst]] [[Clarissa Pinkola Estés]] refers to the key as "the key of knowing" which gives the wife consciousness. She can choose to not open the door and live as a naive young woman. Instead, she has chosen to open the door of truth.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Estés |first1=Clarissa Pinkola |title=Women who Run with the Wolves |url=http://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com/women_who_run_with_the_wolves__myths_and_stories_of_the_wild_woman_archetype_101250.htm |publisher=Ballantine Books |date=1995|location=New York}}</ref>

For psychologist [[Bruno Bettelheim]], ''Bluebeard'' can only be considered a fairy-tale because of the magical bleeding key; otherwise, it would just be a monstrous horror story. Bettelheim sees the key as associated with the male sexual organ, "particularly the first intercourse when the hymen is broken and blood gets on it". For Bettelheim, the blood on the key is a symbol of the wife's indiscretion.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bettelheim |first1=Bruno |title=The Uses of Enchantment |url=https://archive.org/details/usesofenchantme100bett |url-access=registration |date=1977 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York|isbn=9780394722658 }}</ref>

For scholar Philip Lewis, the key offered to the wife by Bluebeard represents his superiority, since he knows something she does not. The blood on the key indicates that she now has knowledge. She has erased the difference between them, and in order to return her to her previous state, he must kill her.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hermansson |first1=Casie |title=Bluebeard. A reader's Guide to the English Tradition |date=2009 |publisher=University of Mississippi: Association of American University Presses |location=Minnesota}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Philip E. |title=Seeing through the Mother Goose tales: visual turns in the writings of Charles Perrault |date=1996 |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=California}}</ref>