SOURCE: “Beauties and Beasts” and “Father and Daughters,” in Fairy Tale Romance: The Grimms, Basile, and Perrault, University of Illinois Press, 1991, pp. 55-86 and 87-112.

In the following excerpts, McGlathery provides a comparative analysis of themes in tales by Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Giambattista Basile.

Beastly Bridegrooms

The indirect or symbolic portrayal of maidenly ambivalence about marrying is not limited, in fairy tale romance, to encounters with animal suitors. The bridegroom may be portrayed as subhuman or “beastly” in some other way, as for example in the familiar story of Bluebeard, one of the folktales made famous by Perrault's little collection. (Because of the important precedence of “La Barbe bleue” the Grimms dropped their version, “Blau bart,” from their collection beginning with the second edition.) In Perrault's telling of the story, the wealthy gentleman's blue beard has “rendered him so ugly and terrifying that there was neither...