Bluebeard

See Marquis

Bride

See Narrator

Heroine

See Narrator

Jean-Yves

Jean-Yves, the blind piano tuner, befriends the narrator when she first marries the Marquis and learns the fate of his previous wives. Through him, readers learn of the long history in the area of the Marquis's family and their violent nature. After her mother kills the Marquis, the narrator establishes a music school and is "busily engaged in setting up house" with the piano tuner, who loves her for who she is and cannot see the mark of shame that brands her forehead. His role as the man with whom the protagonist lives happily ever after is a subversion of the typical fairy-tale ending, in which the woman falls in love with a handsome prince or other dashing hero.

Marquis

Modeled after the legendary figure of Bluebeard, the wife-murderer of legend and lore, much of the Marquis's character remains...