UNDERGRADUATE

with a literal death, but more the death of a marriage
as Sally discovers her husband’s infidelity. This lack of
gruesome detail may seem like a drastic departure from
the original, but Atwood’s version is nothing compared to
that of Oates. Rather than have her heroine go through the
forbidden door, the protagonist in “Blue-Bearded Lover”
does not enter the chamber at all. Instead, she chooses
to live her life with Bluebeard and bear his children. This
act reveals the calculating nature of this wife, who would
rather choose to live with evil than attempt to open the
door. In this way, Oates’ protagonist is able to conquer the
figure of Bluebeard and truly take control of her own tale,
even if her actions might seem just as despicable as her
husband’s to the reader. Of the tales authored by women,
the one that perhaps is most true to the original is Carter’s
“The Bloody Chamber,” which may seem surprising since
it is closer to a novella than a fairy tale, which readers
would assume leaves more room for reinterpretation.
While staying true to many of the plot points, Carter
choses to explore areas such as sexuality, female agency
and the effects of poverty on a marriage decision.
These three versions of “Bluebeard” are quite different
from each other, while at the same time being recognizable
as stemming from the same tale. 5 This quick detailing
of these reinterpretations managed to point out the
ways in which the tales were different from the original
“Bluebeard” and from each other; however, what it failed
to mention were the ways in which they are all extremely
similar. Many of the issues changed in these tales revolve
around the female protagonist’s gender and the assets or
limitations that come from it. Part of this similarity could
be explained by the fact that all these authors are largely
famous, all born in the late 1930’s and all white women
who are residing or resided in the United States, Canada
and Europe. Another part of the reason for this intense
focus on the gender of the female protagonists and
5 Fairy tales that all exhibit the same themes and plot summary can
be found using the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification system.
“Bluebeard” and its variations are considered to be ATU 312 tale types.
little else could come from the field of feminist fairy tale
criticism itself, which had for so long been inundated with
a heavy focus on gender, at the expense of other identities.
While the field of fairy tale criticism had been in existence
for quite some time, feminist fairy tale criticism did
not occur until the beginning of the second wave of
feminism. 6 It was in 1970 that Alison Lurie published
the article that would lead to the creation of the field, by
claiming fairy tales were beneficial to young girls. 7 Lurie
comes out strongly on the side of both folk and fairy tales,
arguing that they are full of strong female characters,
hidden in popular and less popular stories. It is due
to the male domination of the literary world, through
careful selection, editing and publication of only certain
tales that women had been keep in the dark for so long
about these female characters, ripe for idolization. Lurie
advocates not for the tales that we might be familiar with
today, but instead “traditional” tales, which she claims
are “exactly the sort of subversive literature of which a
feminist should approve.” 8 This sparked a rebuttal from
Marcia R. Lieberman, who fundamentally disagreed with
Lurie, a move that started what is now termed the Lurie-
Lieberman debate. 9 Lieberman’s article claimed that it
did not matter if there existed obscure female role models
hidden away in neglected fairy tales. These are not the
characters that young girls learn of when undergoing the
process of what it means to be a woman in the United
States. Lieberman writes: “Only the best-known stories,
those that everyone has read or heard, indeed, those that
Disney has popularized, have affected masses of children
in our culture.” 10 She goes on to argue that fairy tales do
the work of teaching young girls that the best thing in
6 This section would not be complete without giving credit to Haase’s
“Feminist Fairy Tale Scholarship,” 15-63. The scope of his survey covers
much more than is mentioned in this paper and I would direct those
further interested there.
7 Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups. Parts of this book are a revision of Lurie’s
earlier article “Fairy Tale Liberation,” 42-44.
8 Ibid., 19.
9 Lieberman, “‘Some Day My Prince Will Come,’” 383-4.
10 Ibid., 383-4.
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