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Author
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Comment
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Terri
Registered User
(3/15/02 7:01:29 am)
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Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
First, my apologies for being off this board for so long. Life and the annual "Year's Best Fantasy & Horror" anthology had me swamped for awhile there... It's nice to be back.
Second, I'd like to return to the topic of Bluebeard, if y'all are willing. Greg has written a splendid novel based on Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird for the Tor Books "Fairy Tales" series, and I need to sit down real soon to write an introduction for it, which I'll probably also turn into an article for Realms of Fantasy. So any Bluebeard thoughts, analysis, sources, etc., would be very welcome... Can anyone weigh in with favorite Bluebeard interpretations in fiction, film, etc? Thanks!
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(3/15/02 9:38:23 am)
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Re: Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
Marie-Louise Von Franz has written a fair bit about fairy tales from a Jungian perspective, and she connects Bluebeard to the negative animus in Man and His Symbols. I'm afraid I can't remember how extensive the analysis is - it's been awhile since I read it - however I do remember a striking illustration accompanying the text.
I know there must be Angela Carter fans here! I really enjoyed her interpretation of The Bloody Chamber, and how she twists the ending (with the mother).
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(3/15/02 11:55:19 am)
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Favorite
When I do storytelling with grownups (or older kids) I love to tell "Mr. Fox" which has a particular spookiness to it. It's related more to the "Fitcher's Bird" variant where the girl saves herself, than to the traight-forward Bluebeard where she waits for her brothers to rescue her.("Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anyone coming?")
That may be part of why I love it. It also has the marvelous refrain which is carved into the lintel of Mr. Fox's various doors: "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest your heart's blood run cold."
Interestingly enough, Isak Dinesen proclaimed (in one of her essays) that "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold," was her life's motto. And she is my favorite fairy tale writer.
Jane
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(3/16/02 6:06:20 pm)
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More
I am reading a second biography of Edna St Vincent Millay, and the author mentions that she wrote a poem "Bluebeard" and a short story that was a straightforward retelling, the latter published in Ainslee's magazine. Don't know how easy it would be to lay hands on it, though.
Jane
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JaNell
Unregistered User
(3/16/02 9:27:36 pm)
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BlueBear poem
The poem text can be read at www.everypoet.com/archive...nnet_6.htm
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JaNell
Registered User
(3/16/02 9:51:15 pm)
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D'Oh.
Scratch that, it's on this site, too.
But hey, it wasn't a wasted google; I ended by writing my own version (poem) of Blue beard, so, yeah!
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Kerrie
Registered User
(3/17/02 5:40:40 am)
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Cupid and Psyche? Orpheus and Eurydice?
Could the tale of Cupid and Psyche be somehow related? She is forbidden to see her husband, and betrays his trust by gazing at him by candle light.
www.gods-heros-myth.com/myths/cupid.html
www.pitt.edu/~dash/cupid.html
Also, with the roles reversed, there are Orpheus and Eurydice, where he must not look back at her until they leave the underworld.
www.gods-heros-myth.com/m...ydice.html
I'm sure there are other tales of things forbidden that would work wonderfully in the context of Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird. Is there a category for the forbidden in the classification system? Here are some links re: B/FB:
www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0312.html
www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0955.html
Hope this helps!
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
Edited by: Kerrie at: 3/18/02 3:51:51 pm
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sonia789
Registered User
(3/17/02 3:23:49 pm)
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Re: Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
Hi Terri. I don't know if you know this, but Maria Tatar in her introduction to the Bluebeard tale in The Classic Fairy Tales (1999) argues that the literary representation of Bluebeard has become the archetype in which contemporary cinematic serial killers are based on. She also argues that the narrative framework of Bluebeard is the legitimate precursor of cinematic horror: an idea which greatly interests me since I am currently doing a PhD specialising in Fairy Tales and the cinematic horror genre. It would be worth reading her introduction if you haven't already come across it. Another writer, Marina Warner, also looks at the characterisation of Bluebeard in relation to cinema in her work No Go the Bogeyman.
Could I just ask: are you Terri Windling, the co-editor of Snow White, Blood Red? If you are, then I just want to say how much I enjoyed reading the collection of fairy tales found in the above mentioned book! If you're interested as well, my topic on fairy tales and horror is posted on this discussion board, and you may find it useful to read.
Sonia.
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(3/17/02 4:39:31 pm)
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Yes
Sonia--in case Terri doesn't get around to answering for a while, she is indeed THAT Terri Windling!
Jane
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Gregor9
Registered User
(3/18/02 7:08:23 am)
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Fitcher
Terri,
One thing I discovered while working on the book came from a friend of mine of long-standing, who was in therapy at the time. I won't go into her life, save that she's had some pretty bad, even brutal marriages. And she was surprised I was working on Bluebeard, as she and her therapist had been working with that story as a means of getting at things that had happened to her. "Bluebeard" has become an archetype of the domineering, controlling and manipulative husband--the supreme control freak, and the fairy tale elements make horrific and clear what is often subtler in real life, allowing the abused spouse to see how she has been controlled. Most of the second draft of the book took place after she and I had talked about this at length, and it informed what I did with the book. She also became one of my first readers, because her feedback was so very much from inside the story.
I don't know if this will influence the intro, but it did govern the book's dedication.
Greg
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swanchick
Registered User
(3/19/02 6:37:42 pm)
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Bluebeard associations
For whatever reason, if a psychologist asked me to free-associate with the name "Bluebeard", my gut response would be Henry the Eighth...
swanchick
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swood
Unregistered User
(3/21/02 6:53:11 am)
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Bluebeard and the Middle East
I am most familiar with Bluebeard from the Brothers Grimm, though the version Heidi has posted on the site is from Charles Perrault. Neither tale suggests that Bluebeard is of Middle Eastern origin, and yet, so many of the picture books depict him this way. Why couldn't bluebeard be a Teutonic warrior? (Thus the blue dye.)
Contemporary takes on the tale always take the route of domestic violence. Perhaps this tale has just as much to say about xenophobia (fear of a foreign culture, its rules and customs, mixed race) as it has to do with psychotic behavior.
Sarah
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Don
Registered User
(3/21/02 8:16:58 am)
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Re: Bluebeard and the Middle East
Danielle M. Roemer has written about the oriental associations in
Bluebeard tales, especially as they are exploited in Angela Carter's
version of the story. Roemer's article is "The Contextualization
of the Marquis in Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber," which
can be found in the special Angela Carter issue of MARVELS &
TALES: JOURNAL OF FAIRY-TALE STUDIES. You can read her abstract
at www.langlab.wayne.edu/MarvelsHome/v12n1.html
.
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JasmineAngel
Registered User
(3/21/02 10:15:55 am)
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Re: Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
Hi - I am new to this board and have a question about a set of fairy tales published in the early to mid 1980s. My elementary school had this set of hardcover, peachy-pink colored fairy tales that were by Grimm and possibly Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. I remember reading Cinderella (Glass Slipper?) which was a modern take on the story, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, the Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird story with the egg and the bloody basin, and Little Red Riding Hood. I believe the illustrator on that is Sarah Moon - here is the french version of the book, picture of the cover and everything:
asp.ricochet-jeunes.org/ie/biblio/illus.asp?
The story has red riding hood running through dark alleys instead of the usual forest setting.
I really want to find and acquire these fairy tales, so if anyone knows any more about these and where I might find them, please let me know!
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JasmineAngel
Registered User
(3/21/02 11:03:07 am)
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Re: Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
Here is the rest of that link, to take you right to Sarah Moon:
name=Moon&surname=Sarah
I forgot to paste that to the end of my link in my last post.
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oaken
mondream
Registered User
(3/21/02 11:06:11 am)
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Re: Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
I'm not really sure how relevant this is to the topic but...
Bluebeard has always been one of my favorite stories (although when I first read it I couldn't sleep for a while, the illustrator chose to illustrate the part where the girl opens the forbidden door and, in this version at least, there's a figure of a women hanging in a white dress). However, I'm trying to figure out a way to adapt the English Folktale "Mr. Fox" for the stage (it just seems so right?). Like Jane Yolen, I love the repitition of phrases in the tale (especially Mr. Fox's refrain of "it is not so, it was not so, and God forbis it should be so"). I hope that I can do it justice, and need to spend some more time on it, but my professors instit on assigning papers all the time (and my warped mind is actually starting to enjoy them, frightening.)
-jill
Edited by: oaken mondream at: 3/21/02 1:55:20 pm
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Don
Registered User
(3/21/02 12:50:08 pm)
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Sarah Moon
JasmineAngel--The series you have in mind was published by Creative Education Inc., 123 S. Broad Street, Mankato MN 56001 (the address given in the books I have from that series).
Edited by: Don at: 3/21/02 12:56:53 pm
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(3/21/02 1:03:25 pm)
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spelling
Yolen.
With an e. Not an a.
Several people on these boards have made that mistake and I am cranky enough today to fuss over it.
Jane
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sonia789
Registered User
(3/21/02 1:27:11 pm)
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Re: Yes
Thanks Jane!
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JasmineAngel
Registered User
(3/22/02 6:24:58 am)
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Re: Sarah Moon
Don -
Thank you so much! Hopefully I can get some info from that company
on where I might find them. I actually live in MN so maybe that'll
make it easier...thanks again!
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catja1
Registered User
(3/23/02 2:33:20 pm)
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Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird
Hi everyone,
Sorry to be absent for so long -- the grad school grind is taking its toll. But I saw this and had to reply. First, I am really looking forward to Greg's book! When is it coming out? And second, I just began a project on Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird; I'll be editing a collection of literary retellings, in the same vein as Zipes' _Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood_ -- I'm working on the intro right now, actually. I apologize for the length of this entry, but it's such a fascinating story that there's an enormous amount one can say.
Hmm, where to begin...
Well, there are three overall patterns to stories of murderous husbands, which correspond roughly to AT 311 (Rescue by the Sister, i.e. Fitcher's Bird), AT 312 (Bluebeard) and AT 955 (The Robber Bridegroom). 311 and 312 have, at the center, a prohibition/violation sequence; the spin given upon this wifely disobedience varies greatly, depending upon who's telling the tale; in general, 312 stories are more likely to emphasize the heroine's transgression at the expense of the husband's villainies, Perrault's text being the most famous. 955 may or may not have the prohibition, but the heroine is often described as curious, or interested in her suitor's home; it connects more strongly with 311, being linked by a powerful heroine who outwits the villain.
In fact, tales like "Fitcher's Bird" are often downright laudatory towards the heroine; the Grimms describe her as "clever," and never condemn her for her curiosity. The major tension in all "Bluebeard"-like tales is that of competing social codes; one must expose and punish murderers, but at the same time, wives must obey their husbands. A disobedient woman threatens the patriarchal family structure, and, even if the husband is a murderer, there is still some discomfort with this female unruliness. 311 tales often contain this threat by making the husband an explicitly supernatural adversary, against whom one is justified in taking any measures necessary: a wizard, a dragon, or the Devil himself (in the Italian "Silver Nose"). This device of Othering the husband is at work in many Bluebeard-tales, as Kerrie, I think, noted; xenophobia plays a part in many tellings, and in illustrations.
Structurally, 311 tales hew closer to 955 than to 312; as in "The Robber Bridegroom," for example, the movement in these tales is divided almost equally between inward (to the heart of the castle to the forbidden chamber) and outward (back to the heroine's home). In 311 tales, the emphasis is often upon the heroine's actual flight, in disguise or otherwise; "Fitcher's Bird" has a very complex series of comings and goings, with the heroine and her sisters moving outward, the wedding guests moving in, and the heroine's need for the wizard to travel both out (he carries her sisters home) and in (he must return to his castle, where he can be killed). Marina Warner thinks that "Fitcher's Bird" is a hodgepodge of several different narratives, but I disagree; as the Grimms have rendered it, it is both symbolically and structurally tight, if enigmatic. The heroine's decoy, of the skull draped in bridal finery, is one of the most powerful and unnerving images in the Grimm's canon; it perfectly crystallizes the love-in-death that the heroine escaped, and also that which awaits the wizard when he returns. Warner believes that these stories may represent the very legitimate fears young women had about enetering into marriage; not simply of domestic abuse but also of the likelihood of dying in childbirth; marriage, via childbearing, often equalled death before the twentieth century. Add to that the "little death" of orgasm, and the losing of one's "maidenhead" (maiden head?), and you have a slew of symbolic associations.
In contrast, in 312 tales, such as Perrault's "Bluebeard," the movement is primarily inward; the heroine penetrates deeper and deeper into the heart of the castle, and, after she finds the forbidden chamber, the action remains in the castle -- there is a continual motif of penetration. Bluebeard himself returns to the castle, and the brothers rush in at the last minute. In Bartok's opera "Duke Bluebeard's Castle," based on Perrault, the inward movement become metaphorical as well -- the second-to-last door Judit opens contains a lake of tears that Bluebeard has wept. The action has been narrowed down, and is arguably more intense; Perrault's buildup of suspense ("Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?") is masterful. Whittling down the action, though, also deprives the heroine of much opportunity for cleverness; it is type 312 tales that often contain the most scathing condemnations against women's curiosity, and provoke the comparisons to Eve and Pandora -- one nineteenth-century play makes its stance explicit: _Bluebeard: The Effects of Curiosity, or, Justifiable Homicide_. Perrault drops in all sorts of snide remarks about the heroine's rudeness and stupidity, and only allows her to live because she "truly repents" of her disobedience. Interestingly, other versions of the tale, especially 311 tales and traditional ballads such as "Lady Isabella and the Elfin Knight," show the heroine escaping because she *feigns* a maidenly virtue (lack of curiosity curiosity, modesty, concern for prayer), thus fooling her captor.
Some critics believe Perrault invented the Bluebeard story, and that all versions come from that wellspring, but I disagree. One can only guess at the age of stories like "Fitcher's Bird," but "Mr. Fox" was around before Perrault -- Shakespeare quotes the refrain ("It is not so, nor it was not so,and God forbid that it should be so!") in _Much Ado About Nothing_, calling it an "old tale." There have also been attempts to name Gilles de Rais or Comorre the Cursed the "original" Bluebeard, but these have met with limited success, as far as establishing a coherent lineage for the tale. Rather, these individuals, especially Gilles de Rais, have been thrown into the "pot of story," in Tolkien's metaphor, and are mixed up with Bluebeard. In Breton lore, songs name Gilles de Rais "Bluebeard," and certain of his estates are locally known as "Bluebeard's Castle"; but historically, de Rais was a child killer -- an interesting example of folk amalgamation at work. Comorre the Cursed is the villainous husband in the story of St. Tryphime, which dates back to the eighth century, I believe. Likely, "Bluebeard," "Fitcher's Bird," and all their cousins drew upon historical, literary and religious traditions of murderous husbands, including, but not limited to, all those virgin-martyr legends, historical serial killers, and the biblical Judith and Holofernes (witness Judit, the heroine of Bartok's opera). Add in women's real concerns about marriage and the patriarchy, and the often-subversive nature of folklore, and you have a rich stew to draw from.
Maria Tatar talks quite a bit about "Bluebeard" in _The Classic Fairy tales_; also, Cristina Bacchilega devotes a chapter to the tale in _Postmodern Fairy Tales_. I have some more references, if you're interested; but right now, my hands are sore from typing!
Does this help at all?
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