Feminism In Joyce Carol Oates 'Short Story Blue Bearded-Lover'

From the beginning of time woman have faced the difficult task of discovering her position in a “man’s world”. From a historical viewpoint, we can trace woman’s struggle back to Eve — the women who ate the forbidden fruit and from those actions left mankind to pay a huge price — to also the expectations of women from the beginning of time to be only confined to the domestic lifestyle of obedience. Females have been shunned from seeking higher knowledge because knowledge, as deemed by the male ego, is only for the male neurological capacity. The Bluebeard tales give life to the theory that women’s desperation for knowledge will lead them down the path to their demise. In each Bluebeard tale for example, the three wives in Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber and the seven wives in

Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard all set out to find the truth behind their husband mysterious past, which as mentioned, leads them to their tragic death. This leaves the women to face the competing friction between becoming the heroine that seeks the truth but face the judgment that she is a “wild woman” not fulfilling her obedient expectations, and the women that remains naive faces the fact that if something unfortunate is to happen they are ultimately to blame for their lack of knowledge. In order to combat these notions, woman should read the Bluebeard tales as a warning about marriage because the woman that knows the truth of her lover’s downfalls can establish her own values from those downfalls before committing herself to a marriage.
Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber uses extracted content from the early tale of Bluebeard to bring the dark depths of marriage to the forefront. “I remember” establishes Carter’s novella as a distant memory much like how Charles Perrault begins his tale Bluebeard with, “There was once a man”(Carter 1)(Perrault). These opening lines establish no real time frame with any real time limitation, which allow the readers mind to run wild with these tales. The nameless heroine in The Bloody Chamber establishes herself in present tense looking back on her marriage to — the richest man in France — the Marquis. From the beginning of the novella, the heroine divulges in the fact that there are uncertain aspects of the marriage. The first of these uncertainties being that the marriage was for wealth not love. In an exchange between the heroine and her mother, the initial apprehension of both the mother and heroine are revealed when the heroine’s mother asks, “Are you sure you love him?’ To which the heroine replies, “I’m sure I want to marry him,”(Carter 2). From this interaction, the nameless heroine affirms her position in the marriage as being only for materialistic wealth and the mother establishes her reluctance. The mother’s hesitation of the marriage comes from the knowledge of being married once in which she gave up everything for love. And with that in mind this would be a point made for why women must read this version of a Bluebeard tale as a warning. The first warning must be to not marry a man for his materialistic worth, but for his love. If a marriages foundation is built on love then the marriage has a better chance of withstanding all trials. Where as a woman who marries a man for his materialistic worth never fully knows the depth of her husband's downfalls to which could lead to grave danger. However, an argument can be made that a woman who seeks a man for his materialistic wealth must reap the consequences of her choice.
The foreshadowing of the young heroine’s dangerous fortune allows tension to develop from the beginning of the novella. Rather than establishing a traditional fairy tale setting with inhospitable living standards of a difficult home life and the opportunity for prince charming to save the damsel in distress, The Bloody Chamber captivates our attention with danger rather than the ultimate happy ending. The origin of this danger begins as the heroine leaves behind her previous simplistic life to embark on the unpredictable journey of marriage. As with any new wife there is a sense of excitement, expectation, and fear. An argument can be made that this excitement is blinding. The natural nature to question obscure signs is diminished by this excitement, which leads to the potential for corruption and manipulation from that vulnerability. For example, with such excitement of the glitz and glamour of the heroines new home (the castle), the tendency to question what the castle walls hold behind them subsides. But as the heroine soon realizes what lies behind the castle walls is not the glitz and glamour that appears on the outside, but the ominous fate of corruption.
To gain a better sense of this corruption and manipulation, the major junction to the tale is when the heroine gains possession of the keys in which is of crucial importance. At first glance, the guardianship of the keys is seen as a major establishment of trust between the Marquis and heroine, but as soon realized it is the point of manipulation in the tale. The Marquis knowledge of his previous wife’s endeavors to overcome the curiosity of the forbidden room, sets in motions his manipulation tactic of giving the heroine the keys to the castle and along with it the key to the forbidden room, knowing the future outcome of such actions. To the reader's dismay just as her predecessors, the heroine falls into the trap and is overcome with curiosity to enter the forbidden room proclaiming, “I knew I had behaved exactly according to his desires,”(Carter 34). The opening of the forbidden room to “the bloody chamber,” which symbolically represents the opening of knowledge to the heroine and the inner sole of the Marquis — like metaphorically opening the chambers to her lover’s bloody heart. From this point of significance comes the cautionary warning of all Bluebeard tales in which a woman must know the secrets that lay behind her lover's heart in order to protect her from the dark depths of secrecy in a marriage.
Dark secrets one holds from their lover in a marriage tend to be a trajectory catalyst heading for catastrophe. Jim Shepard’s modern day Bluebeard tale Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay captures the dark depths of marriage with devastating secrets, which have the potential to inflict the ultimate betrayal, and the struggle for self-identity outside of the marriage combine. Through the duration of the tale the reader knows the devastating secret that the narrator is hiding — a vasectomy. On multiple occasions, the narrator has stated his wife looks to have another child, but he clearly states he has already made up his mind that he would not be interested. The narrator gives clues into his thought process that he worries he does not know himself well enough to be a good father which leads him to his life altering decision. He knows that this decision has the potential for a shattering effect on his marriage. He even mentions, “So for the last two months I’ve gone around the house like a demolition expert who’s already wired the entire thing to blow and keeps rechecking the charges and connections”(Shepard 321). Because of the narrator's struggle for self-identity, he looks to this decision as the only form of control over his life outside of the marriage combine.
In many ways the narrator's struggle for self-identity stems from his wife. He identifies himself so much in her identity making refers many times to her “To Do” stating, “It makes me think she doesn't want me anymore, and the idea is so paralyzing and maddening that I loose track of myself”(Shepard 319). Shepard meticulously uses these merridale discrepancies as a warning to find your self identity and values before committing to a marriage where the need for a strong self identity is need to make two identities work cohesively together to avoid disaster: divorce.
Shepard uses natural disasters, for example a devastating 8.3 earthquake and tidal wave, to symbolize disaster in the narrator's life and marriage. Two weeks after the narrator was born, the “greatest spasm … when it came to destructive energy, in recorded history” occurred (Shepard 316). This event symbolically foreshadows the life-altering secret the narrator hides from his wife. He places great emphasis on the damaging effects of the earthquake just as his detrimental secret posses. From this event, it seems as if his life would forever be on an altered path. He states that he is, “Mr. Glass Half Empty”(Shepard 319) giving insight into his internal conflict, which lead to the symbolic tidal wave of his life. As he struggles with self-identity and a deteriorating marriage, he realizes the accumulation of these issues is on the verge of reaching its peak. This leads to one of the crucial warnings that we must acknowledge in the Bluebeard tales that knowing the secrets of our lover’s tribulations can lead to finding our own individual values for marriage.
On the contrary in Joyce Carol Oates short story Blue Bearded-Lover the nameless bride allows love to validate the darkness in her lover.

By obeying the obedient expectations of women and not entering the forbidden room of her lover she receives the ultimate honor of bearing a child — a significant achievement never obtained before. This is a substantial deviation from Angela Carter’s feminist take on the Bluebeard tale where the heroine looks to understand her lover and from her findings establishes herself. But as it seems, the manipulation of her Blue Bearded-Lover to not fall into the trap of her predecessors leaves room for the idea that she takes on the role of a heroine. However, Blue Bearded-Lover provides a crucial cautionary warning to woman to never let love validate the darkness in our lover. Not opening the door seems as if the bride loves her Blue Bearded lover but in actuality show the insufficiency of her love. A women who seeks to fully understand all characteristics of her husband establishes values in herself that lead her to love all aspects of her lover. Were as a women who turns a blind eye to her lovers dark secrets sets the destiny for her own precarious

fate.
The mystery of ones ominous fate has always proved more compelling then pious behavior, which could be the potential reason why the Bluebeard tale keeps re-appearing in our culture. Another reason would be a merging of the Bluebeard tale into one elaborate contemporary story that is easily extendable to modern day readers. With the original content still intact but the essence of an innovative outlook the revised tales have managed to grasp our attention in a variety of ways. The Bluebeard tales leave behind their mark of a cautionary warning for woman to be aware. Do not let curiosity-kill-the-cat. Instead be bold in understanding you lover before the fateful leap is taken and do not let dark secrets lead you down a grim path when it can be prevented. Knowledge as displayed, is key.