A New History of Blue Beard For the Amusement of Little Lack Beard, and His Pretty Sisters — Context and Discussion

A Narrator Who Second-Guesses Himself

The most distinctive feature of this version is the narrator’s habit of revising his own statements. When Blue Beard sees Fatima, the narrator says he “fell violently in love with her,” then immediately adds, “I should not say love, for it was that kind of love a wolf has for a pretty innocent lamb.” This pattern appears again when describing the father’s delight: the old man is “quite delighted with the offer, especially as Blue Beard told him he should be the master of all his slaves.” The narrator does not comment further, but the juxtaposition of a father trading his daughter for power over slaves is left for the reader to notice. These small corrections and qualifications make the narrator seem fallible and human, rather than an omniscient moralizer. They also slow the pace at key moments, drawing attention to the ethical weight of the events.

Two Sisters, Two Voices

Fatima and Irene are distinguished not only by their beauty but by their inner responses. Fatima faints when she learns of Blue Beard’s proposal; Irene, by contrast, thinks to herself, “what a fine thing … it will be to have fine rooms to walk in when the weather is bad, and gardens to range in when the weather is fine; well, I almost wish he had fallen in love with me, for I don't think the great Abomelique would be so ugly, if it was not for his monstrous great Blue Beard.” Irene’s internal monologue is practical, even calculating, and her dismissal of the beard as the only flaw suggests a childlike logic. Fatima’s silence and fainting align her with the passive heroine, while Irene’s voiced ambitions give her a distinct personality. The narrator does not judge either sister; he simply reports their reactions, leaving the reader to compare them.

Abrupt Endings and Moral Rhymes

After the violent climax—Selim runs Blue Beard “through the body” and lays him “breathless on the floor”—the story concludes with remarkable speed. Selim takes possession of the castle, frees the slaves, and marries Fatima; his brother marries Irene; and “they all lived together happily.” The narrator then appends a six-line moral poem: “Cruel Blue Beard being dead / And those lovers in his stead, / Time goes merrily along, / Now a dance, and then a song.” The shift from gory stabbing to cheerful couplets is abrupt. The poem’s final couplet, “Guilt may leave behind its stings, / Nought but comfort virtue brings,” feels tacked on, as if the narrator remembered the need for a moral only after the action was done. This structural quirk gives the tale a lopsided rhythm: long, chatty exposition and a compressed, almost perfunctory resolution.

Readers should pay attention to the narrator’s asides and self-corrections, which are the most distinctive feature of this version. The text also rewards comparison between the two sisters’ reactions and the way the story rushes past its violent climax into a rhymed moral. Because the excerpts are incomplete, it is unclear how much of the middle section—the forbidden chamber and the suspense—follows the traditional plot, but the narrative voice remains consistent throughout the available text.

I keep returning to that chatty Blue Beard narrator, tripping over his own words, and it reminds me of how those old tales whisper between cultures. The same gentle domesticity and quiet magic seem to live on in Deccan Nursery Tales; or, Fairy Tales from the South — Context and Discussion, where practical Irene would have felt perfectly at home. It’s the small, human interruptions that linger.