Heroine

In both of the Grimms' tales ("Fitcher's Bird" and "The Robber Bridegroom"), the heroine ends up in her predicament accidentally. In "Fitcher's Bird," a sorcerer goes to town, and captures the girls one by one. In "The Robber Bridegroom," the heroine is promised in marriage.
Their reactions are what distinguish them. In "Fitcher's Bird," all three women are disobedient (And rightfully so, as they're thrown inside of a bread basket). However, the third one plans ahead of her disobedience, and is successful.
In "The Robber Bridegroom," the heroine is harder to read. On one hand, she is disobedient, as she ignores the voice of the forest. However, she is obedient by going through with the marriage on her father's orders. It seems like her virtue, like many fairy tale heroines, is her silence. Because she remains silent while witnessing the murder, the evidence is practically handed to her (no pun intended), and she comes out successful.

Elements of Horror 3/14

Elements of horror:
The amount of dismemberment and intensity of the violence certainly changed from story to story. In the original Perrault, the violence occurred in the past. While there is a large pool of blood, the murders themselves are not described. However, in the Grimms' "Fitcher's Bird," there is a graphic decapitation followed by dismemberment and blood spill. In the Grimms' "Robber Bridegroom," a girl is dismembered, covered in salt, and served to eat, while in "Mr. Fox," the girl's hand is sliced off.
I think it is important to note that the violence is used as much for plot as for sensationalism. In all of the non-Perrault stories, the dismembered body parts act as messages to the real heroine of each tale. The Perrault version actually suffers without the violence, as the plot situation is handled with a single awkward sentence: "(these were all the women Bluebeard had married and then murdered one after another)". By "seeing" the violence instead of hearing about it in past tense, the Bluebeard-type villain becomes far more evil.

Heroine

In the Brothers Grimm’s version “The Robber Bridegroom,” the heroine’s character is a celebration of self-preservation and cleverness. The entire story, the girl knew that there was something strange about her suitor, and did not trust him at all. She tried to make excuses not to visit him, but to no avail. Forced into visiting, the girl “filled her pockets with peas and lentils to mark the way,” much like Hansel and Gretel. This was very clever because “the wind had scattered the ashes, but the peas and lentils had sprouted and showed the way in the moonlight.” She is also clever to take the finger with the ring on it as proof of the robber's murder. Upon showing it, the robber and his group "were executed for their dreadful deeds."

Elements of Horror

The most common element of horror that I found in the readings was a forbidden room with bloody dead bodies in it. I found this element in “The Seven Wives of Bluebeard,” “Fitcher’s Bird,” “Bluebeard,” and “Mr. Fox.” In most of these stories, Bluebeard’s wives, or soon-to-be wives, are given keys to the house but forbidden to enter a certain area. The women are too curious to obey, enter the room and see Bluebeard’s past wives chopped up into little pieces. This element startles the audience and helps move the plot along, because the women then must be punished for their disobedience.
Another element which I noticed in “The Robber’s Bridegroom” and “Mr. Fox” was that a male figure would have a female’s body, mutilate it, and chop off their finger to get a ring. I think this element is to startle the audience, elaborate the story, and help move the plot. After the female figure shows the finger with the ring to everyone, the male is then killed.
The final horror element was from “Bluebeard’s Ghost,” and it was the ghost coming out of the grave. It helped Mrs. Bluebeard select her future husband, because it turned out that Mr. Bluebeard was not coming out of his grave, but was one of her suitors posing as the ghost. It startled the audience and helped move the plot along.

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

Elements of Horror in Bluebeard 3/24

The first element of horror that I want to focus on is the finger falling in the girl's lap while she hides from her betrothed. At this moment in the story, the heroine is in danger of being discovered, and the finger falling into her lap heightens the drama of the murder scene for the already tense audience. This particular circumstance happens only in "The Robber Bridegroom" and "Mr. Fox" but the intent of the event, risk of discovery, occurs in several of the stories, such as in "Bluebeard's Egg" when Sally moves away from the window so Ed won't see that she has been watching him and in all the stories (Perrault's "Bluebeard" and Grimms' "Fitcher's Bird") where a woman attempts to hide the fact that she entered the room by cleaning the key/egg. The element of horror seems to be the anticipation of discovery and not the actual bloody body parts or keys.

The second element of horror is the forbidden room. This element occurs in some form in almost all the stories we read. In "Bluebeard", "Fitcher's Bird", and "The Seven Wives of Bluebeard", it is an actual room that the women are forbidden or implored not to enter. In "The Robber's Bridegroom" and "Mr. Fox" it is the villain's entire house, and in "Bluebeard's Egg", it is Ed's mind and inner thoughts. Without the forbidden room there would be no story. It is the prohibition that forms the entire plot of the fairy tales. If the women did not enter the room, they would never discover Bluebeard's secrets, and he, therefore, would have no justification or cause to punish them.

Audra Crosby

Assignment: 24 March 2009

Since class had to be cut short today, there will be two posts for this evening.

Question 1: Compare the elements of horror in the various versions of Bluebeard that you read for today. Please name the elements you are comparing and discuss how they function in the story. Do they help move the plot along? Elaborate the story? Startle the audience? etc.

Question 2: Tatar offers two readings of the heroine’s character: either as a celebration of self-preservation and cleverness or as a disobedient female. Using a version other than the Perrault, consider how the heroine gets presented. Use quotes to support your reading.

Again, please post two separate entries by midnight tonight.