Analysis of Blue Beard by Charles Perrault Introduction Bluebeard, a fairytale by Perrault, is about an affluent man who is known and revered on account of his despicable blue beard. Even though he has had several wives, their whereabouts are a source of mystery. As such, Bluebeard purposes to persuade one of his neighbor’s daughters to take his hand in marriage. Eventually, his efforts pay off and he ends up tying the knot with one of his neighbor`s daughters. After some time has passed in their marital union, Bluebeard announces to his wife that he must set off on an important journey. Before commencing on his journey, he gives the castle`s keys to his wife and the liberty of having access to all the rooms apart from a single room. However, his wife overwhelmed with curiosity goes against her husband`s instructions. As soon as she opens the door to the forbidden chamber, she stumbles upon the sight of the corpses of Bluebeard`s previous wives dangling on the wall. The horrific sight baffles her and she ends up dropping the key on the floor that is doused in blood. Her attempts to clean the stained key are futile. Circumstantially, Bluebeard makes a surprise return to his castle to find his shaken wife. He then discovers his wife`s unforgiveable mistake and purposes to kill her. Just as Bluebeard is about to strike down his wife, her brothers come to her rescue and kill Bluebeard. Being his closest heir, Bluebeard`s wife inherits his entire property and every one lives happily ever after (as is always the case in most fairytales). Setting the Stage: a mystery Even though Bluebeard is a wealthy individual with many properties, both in the country side and in town, he is dreaded by most women courtesy of his blue beard. I... ... middle of paper ... ...fact that he is unlike other human beings. Conclusion From reading and analyzing the Blue Beard, the audience is taught that curiosity and disobedience can lead one into fatal situations . In addition, it also teaches the audience that material wealth should not be the main focus when one is choosing a suitable marriage partner. The personality and behavior of the person are most important. References Anneloes Dusoswa-Hensen. (2011 July). Breaking the Bluebeard-myth: reception and revision of the Bluebeard-tale from ancient to modern times Iona and Peter Opie. (1974). The Classic Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. pp. 103–105 Hermansson, Casie E. (2009). Bluebeard: A Reader's Guide to the English Tradition. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. Hohendal K. (2010 Mar). Fairy-Tale Endings: Death by Husband. The New York Times.
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
In individual searches to find themselves, Frank and April Wheeler take on the roles of the people they want to be, but their acting grows out of control when they lose sense of who they are behind the curtains. Their separate quests for identity converge in their wish for a thriving marriage. Initially, they both play roles in their marriage to please the other, so that when their true identities emerge, their marriage crumbles, lacking communication and sentimentality. Modelled after golden people or manly figures, the roles Frank and April take on create friction with who they actually are. Ultimately, to “do something absolutely honest” and “true,” it must be “a thing … done alone” (Yates 327). One need only look inside his or her self to discover his or her genuine identity.
Hong Chen in Ha Jin’s short story “Taking a Husband” is troubled by the task of selecting a spouse. The family’s fall from affluence and greed resolved her to pick a husband based on potential prosperity. “After her father died of bone cancer, life was hard for the Chens. Two years after his death, the Chens were forced to move out of the compound inhabited by the cadres’ families” (Jin, 2007, p. 355). Hong decided to pick one of the suitors that were candidates for a higher official position. Material wealth is a powerful incentive to forfeit happiness and love during tough times.
Millette, Ashley and Aashish Srinivas. “Beasts and Myths of the Middle Ages.” n.p. n.d. Web. 20 March 2014.
The fairy tale begins with a miller betrothing his daughter to the first suitable man who comes along. The man choosen happens to live deep in the forest, and fills the daughter with dread everytime that she sees him. One day, the suitor demands that his bride come visit him at home. When she tells him she does not know the way, he says he with spread the path to his house with ashes. Nodoubt this fictional element is meant to invoke sadistic images of Nazi Germany and the use of ashes of cremated concentration camp inmates for road construction. The daughter does follow the path with great unease, however, as she follows the path she marks it with peas. She finally comes to the house, and is promptly warned by a bird that she is entering a house of murderers. The girl enters and house and finds it almost entirerly deserted. However, in the basement she finds an old women who repeats the bird’s warning. The crone then prphesizes that the girl will marry death and her bridegroom only seeks to kill her, cut her pieces up, and eat her. As the two prepare to escape, the bridegroom and his band of theives return with maiden [virgin]. The old woman hides the girl behind a large barrel. From her hiding place, she whitnesses the thieves give the maiden three glasses of wine to stop her heart. They then rip her clothes off, and hack the body into pieces with axes. On of the murders notices the girl wears a gold band, but cannot pull it off her finger. He cuts off thefinger which flies from the table and lands in the girls lap. Before the thieve can look for it, the crone offers them some wine, which she has laced with a sleeping potion. The thieves fall prey to the potion and sleep deeply. The g...
Initially he views his wife as a mere possession, a toy doll. which he is able to show off at party’s to the admiration of fellow. members of powerful society, ‘curtsy here, curtsy there – and the vision of loveliness was gone as they say in fairy tales.’ However.
Moving towards the second tale “The Wife of Bath” love and death play a very large toll on the outcome of the story. We begin with a knight who rapes a woman and is given the death penalty. His “love” for her granted him a golden ticket to a death, but miraculously is spared to find the answer to question his life depended on. When introduced to the old woman, he is forced to pledge himself to her in order for help. She helps him and he lives but is now burdened with a woman he does not love. He has no love for her yet is forced to marry and remain miserable.
John, the protagonist's husband, is a round character in Gilman's story who represents the prototype of manhood in the Victorian era. In a review of Michael Kimmel's book, "Manhood in America: A Cultural History," the author explores Kimmel's social and historical analysis of masculinity in the nineteenth century (Furumota). He identifies what Kimmel calls the Self-Made Man: a masculine ideal who originated out of a capitalist economic system and became the dominant ideal in that period. His identity derives, among other factors, from accumulated wealth and status, which defines the Self-Made Man as the personification of economic autonomy. According to Kimmel, his "success had to be earned and manhood had to be proved without end" (qtd. in Furumota). As a consequence, men competed among themselves in a society considered a white man's world. The Self-Made Man would do anything to protect his supremacy and to proof his manhood to other...
The tale of Bluebeard dates back to the seventeenth century. "Bluebeard as we know him first appeared in Paris in 1695 as La Barbe Bleue, in the manuscript version of Charles Perrault’s Histories Ou Contes Du Temps Passe, a collection which has become a seminal influence on the evolution of fairy tale" (Davies 33). The villain of this tale is a man with a blue beard whom everyone fears. After inviting his neighbors to stay and celebrate at his country home in attempts to persuade one of the their daughters to marry him, he convinces the youngest of his widowed neighbor to be his bride. All goes well until the new husband goes away on business, leaving his wife in charge with only one rule, to not open the door of one room in the castle. Of course curiosity overtakes the wife and she enters the room only to find Bluebeard’s previous wives murdered within the chamber.
In Oscar Wilde’s drama The Importance of Being Earnest, he uses light-hearted tones and humor to poke fun at British high society while handling the serious theme of truth and the true identity of who is really “Earnest.” Truth as theme is most significantly portrayed through the women characters, Gwendolen and Cecily but to present serious themes comically, Wilde portrays women to be the weaker sex of society, despite the seriousness of the subject—the identity of the men they want to marry.
Crane, Stephen. "The Blue Hotel." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 1626-1645.
In life it is important that each person thinks rationally in every decision they make, but it is equally important that everyone follows their heart, too. For some people, thinking rationally while following their heart is not an easy task, and it often causes more tragedy than good. Thomas Hardy, a famous British author, repeatedly wrote novels depicting the cross between logical thinking and following one’s heart. For example, his first novel, Far from the Madding Crowd, involves a love circle during a period when women were trying to prove their independence. Bathsheba, the main character, manages a farm on her own and strives to continuously prove her dominance in a male dominant world. She finds herself distracted and stressed due to the fact that three men wish to marry her. Bathsheba significantly wishes to keep her independence, so she turns down the first two men. However, Troy, an untrustworthy womanizer, steals her heart for a moment until she again thinks realistic enough to not fall under his love traps. Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, depicts the cross between thinking both rationally and irrationally once love is present in one’s life, which is common in all of Hardy’s books through the character development, central themes involving love, and gender confusion.
Ford, Boris, ed, The Pelican Guide to English Literature volume seven: The Modern Age, third edition, Penguin Books, Great Britain, 1973
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.
Lady Bracknell represents the typical aristocrat who focuses the idea of marriage on social and economic status. She believes that if the men trying to marry these girls are not of proper background, there is no engagement. Through this major exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the irrational and insignificant matters that the upper class society uses to view marriage.