Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Post by Mallory Hely from ,,The Curse''
Assignment 8 Cont.
In the Grimm's The Robber Bridegroom, the heroine is presented in an interesting light. First, once she enters the murderers' home, it is the older woman and not her who comes up with the plan to hide behind the barrel. The old woman also saves her when she is about to be discovered. Furthermore, she could not even come up with an interesting story to tell at her own wedding at first questioning. "The bride remained still and did not utter a word." (144) Upon further prodding from her new husband, she tells the tale of her adventure to the house in the woods. The guests come to her rescue and all of the murderers are executed. With this conclusion of her wedding, it can only be assumed that she now can live happily ever after as a pleasant and dutiful wife.
Post by Erin Martin from ,,The Nasty Stepmother''
Treatment of the Heroine
Bluebeard is not the first fairy tale in which we've seen a heroine who is cunning and active in her own right (see: some versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel) However, this is the first that I can recall where the heroine is introduced outright as being intelligent, in addition to being beautiful. She is everything that Snow White is not; rather than being the silent, still girl in a glass display case, she has agency and makes decisions--and pays dearly for it.
"He no longer had power over her, and had to do her bidding," write the Brothers Grimm in Fitcher's Bird, exemplifying the heroine's intelligence as her means of escaping trouble on her own.
"She was terrified that she might wake one of them up, but God guided her footsteps," they write in the Robber Bridegroom, attributing even divine protection on their heroine, a far cry from shaming her for disobedience.
I don't think that this story is meant to demonize curiosity in women, as the Perrault moral (in rhyme, no less, so it's easy to remember/needlepoint onto a pillow!) dictates. If this were really a story whose moral seeks to discourage women from disobeying their husbands, the heroine would have died. End of story. Bluebeard is the one who pays in the end, stabbed to death by the heroine's brothers and relatives, his end brought about by the very woman who ignored the arbitrary demands he would not even be around to enforce. Her curiosity could even be considered a good thing--she found the chamber and set about a series of events that brought a serial killer to justice! Great justification for snooping! The Perrault version of Bluebeard is the only story in the cluster than even takes this stance--all the rest praise the heroine's cunning and condemn Bluebeard's abhorrent deeds. Fitcher's Bird, the Robber Bridegroom, and Mr. Fox all present a resolution contigent on the heroine's cunning ploy to trap the villain, rather than punish her for sticking her nose where she ought not.
"He no longer had power over her, and had to do her bidding," write the Brothers Grimm in Fitcher's Bird, exemplifying the heroine's intelligence as her means of escaping trouble on her own.
"She was terrified that she might wake one of them up, but God guided her footsteps," they write in the Robber Bridegroom, attributing even divine protection on their heroine, a far cry from shaming her for disobedience.
I don't think that this story is meant to demonize curiosity in women, as the Perrault moral (in rhyme, no less, so it's easy to remember/needlepoint onto a pillow!) dictates. If this were really a story whose moral seeks to discourage women from disobeying their husbands, the heroine would have died. End of story. Bluebeard is the one who pays in the end, stabbed to death by the heroine's brothers and relatives, his end brought about by the very woman who ignored the arbitrary demands he would not even be around to enforce. Her curiosity could even be considered a good thing--she found the chamber and set about a series of events that brought a serial killer to justice! Great justification for snooping! The Perrault version of Bluebeard is the only story in the cluster than even takes this stance--all the rest praise the heroine's cunning and condemn Bluebeard's abhorrent deeds. Fitcher's Bird, the Robber Bridegroom, and Mr. Fox all present a resolution contigent on the heroine's cunning ploy to trap the villain, rather than punish her for sticking her nose where she ought not.
Post by Briana Weiser from ,,The Mean Giant"
Clever Bride in "The Robber Bridegroom"
In the "Robber Bridegroom," the female protagonist is portrayed in an intelligent, clever manner. She shows foresight in filling "both her pockets with peas and lentils to mark the way" to the bridegroom's house - thereby listening to the feelings that make her "dreadfully frightened" when she "was supposed to leave." The girl also places her trust rightly in the matronly old woman, who saves her when she tells the robbers to " 'come and eat,'" efficiently distracting them from trying to find the finger that flew into the girl's lap. Even though going through the gruesome ordeal of witnessing a murder, she also does not faint or scream when hiding behind the barrel, and is only said to be "trembling and shaking." The girl then escapes with the old woman and immediately tells "her father about everything that had happened." She has the werewithal to keep the chopped off finger and ring to present as evidence later during the wedding celebration. The girl is never described as overtly curious and she does not disobey anyone's orders. Therefore, I would say that she is depicted as possessing a high level of intelligence and self-preservation.
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I completely agree with you that the girl in this tale seems to be a model of cleverness and self-preservation. The cleverness shown by marking the way home with peas and lentils and then her plot to reveal the bridegroom as a robber by telling the story like it was a dream show great cleverness and self-preservation instincts.
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You bring up some very good points; however, I do have a problem with one of them. I disagree that the female protagonist's trust in the old woman was clever or intelligent. In the end it obviously worked out for the best however she had no reason to trust the old woman at first. She very easily could have been one of the robbers trying to trick her. I girl exemplifying self-preservation would more likely be suspicious of such an eerie old woman in such an ominous setting. This heroine just turned out to be lucky.
Post by Brian Collura from ,,The Mean Giant''
The contextually disobedient wife. Don't hit me.
"Rich is the man whose wife is dead and horse alive"
This is an anonymous proverb from Agricultural France, back in the day not long before Bluebeard would begin to be first told. While today, the tale speaks volumes about the man's treachery and blatant criminal record, the society from which this tale comes is one where family and marriage were only just worth the procreation that they enabled. According to sociologist Edward Shorter, in France a husband would likely be publicly humiliated for not having control of his wife by riding an ass backward through town. The death of a child was so common that it hardly caused sorrow, and in fact infanticide or [close to it] the abandonment or giving away of children was not uncommon. Thus, it is unlikely that emotional attachments existed to any great degree like they do today. (Sociology 101 text, by Rodney Stark)
Put in this [breifly described] setting, the crime of Bluebeard's murders and the crime of his wife's disobedience can be met at a much more level plane. Perroult's morals back this as well: while "Curiosity... can bring with it serious regrets," and "women succumb," "You will understand that this tale is one that took place many years ago. No longer are husbands so terrible".
Another proverb from the same time and place to end on -
"The two sweetest days of a fellow in life,
Are the marriage and burial of his wife."
This is an anonymous proverb from Agricultural France, back in the day not long before Bluebeard would begin to be first told. While today, the tale speaks volumes about the man's treachery and blatant criminal record, the society from which this tale comes is one where family and marriage were only just worth the procreation that they enabled. According to sociologist Edward Shorter, in France a husband would likely be publicly humiliated for not having control of his wife by riding an ass backward through town. The death of a child was so common that it hardly caused sorrow, and in fact infanticide or [close to it] the abandonment or giving away of children was not uncommon. Thus, it is unlikely that emotional attachments existed to any great degree like they do today. (Sociology 101 text, by Rodney Stark)
Put in this [breifly described] setting, the crime of Bluebeard's murders and the crime of his wife's disobedience can be met at a much more level plane. Perroult's morals back this as well: while "Curiosity... can bring with it serious regrets," and "women succumb," "You will understand that this tale is one that took place many years ago. No longer are husbands so terrible".
Another proverb from the same time and place to end on -
"The two sweetest days of a fellow in life,
Are the marriage and burial of his wife."
Post by Alex Howard from ,,The Cruel Witch''
Bluebeard's Heroine
In the Brothers Grimm version of Bluebeard, "Fitcher's Bird," the first women the reader encounter's is not presented with any hint of personality or character. When she goes to the door and "was about to hand him a piece of bread, he just touched her and she jumped into his basket." The same description is given of the second daughter and both of them meet the same fate. The third daughter, however, is a much more dynamic character. She is even described as "clever and cunning." And she even "put the egg in a safe place." She definitely celebrates the self-preservation and cunning aspects of femininity. She succeeds is putting her sisters back together, quite literally, and bringing them back to life. She also forges a plan to get them home safely. After the third daughter has set the precedent for being cunning and clever, the first and second daughters follow suit. They trick the sorcerer while he is on his way to her house by crying from the basket as if they are the third daughter. When they are all together in the end, they orchestrate for their brothers and relatives to "set fire to [the house] so that the sorcerer and his crew burned to death." In the end, feminine cunning wins and curiosity indirectly kills the sorcerer instead of the cat.
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I agree. It's interesting how the old woman is given credit for being clever and wise, but the "heroine" is actually portrayed more as dumb. She tells the story, but that wasn't really her idea...but I can't say that I think this version is all about female disobedience.