Tales of Bluebeard and His Wives from Late Antiquity to Postmodern Times

by Shuli Barzilai

Overview

This project provides an in-depth study of narratives about Bluebeard and his wives, or narratives with identifiable Bluebeard motifs, and the intertextual and extratextual personal, political, literary, and sociocultural factors that have made the tale a particularly fertile ground for an author’s adaptation of the story. Whereas Charles Dickens, for example, expresses a sympathetic identification with Bluebeard, and a discernable strain of misogyny emerges in his recreation of the tale and recurrent allusions to it, his contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, uses the tale as a springboard for his critique of avarice, hypocrisy, pretension, and the subjugation of women in Victorian society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781136096662
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/11/2013
Series:	Routledge Studies in Folklore and Fairy Tales
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	206
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Shuli Barzilai is Professor of English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

1. The Snake-Charmer’s Wife in Genesis Rabbah, or Bluebeard Begins

2. Charles Dickens and Captain Murderer

3. Mr. Thackeray’s Closet

4. Miss Thackeray’s Uses of Enchantment

5. The Infernal Desire Machines in Anne Thackeray Ritchie’s Bluebeard’s Keys and Angela Carter’s "The Bloody Chamber"

6. The Bluebeard Syndrome in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle: Fear and Femininity

7. The Party Consciousness: When Texts Get Together in Margaret Atwood’s "Bluebeard’s Egg"

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a subtle and multi-threaded book that will prove interesting to a wide variety of readers…Barzilai’s sophisticated approach combines intertextual readings with an extratextual viewpoint that explores the interplay between stories using the Bluebeard theme and the story author’s lives." —Francisco Vas da Silva, Marvels & Tales

From the Publisher