Heroine Representation 3/24

In the story "Bluebeard's Ghost" it is interesting that the heroine, or Bluebeard's widow, presents herself as disobedient. When speaking on Bluebeard's sharpening his knife and yelling at her to come down from the tower, Mrs. Bluebeard says, "'Merely to punish me for my curiosity--the dear, good, kind, excellent creature!'" (Zipes 339). She does not blame Bluebeard, but instead blames herself and others (her sister Anne) for his death. In this story, she is presented not as courageous, but as a woman who still relies on her dead husband who might have been trying to kill her. In the end, Mrs. B. and Anne even believe that Bluebeard had shown "her future husband" to Mrs. B. (353). It is Anne's love interest, Ensign Trippet, that saves Mrs. B. and Anne from making the mistake of listening to Bluebeard's "ghost" and marrying Mr. Sly. As the story goes, "For the first time in her [Mrs. B's] life, she had not a word to say. Sister Anne, too, was dumb with terror" in the graveyard. Tom Trippet saves them when the women can't save themselves.

Audra Crosby