Atwood's Bluebeard's Egg as an Inverse Fairy Tale
This essay argues that Margaret Atwood's short story "Bluebeard's Egg" functions as a deliberate inversion of the traditional fairy tale, using Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" as a framework for comparison. Through close analysis of characterization, plot, and point-of-view, the paper demonstrates how Atwood revises key fairy tale conventions to show that wealth, physical attractiveness, and marriage are insufficient guarantees of happiness for real women. The essay draws on scholarly criticism to support its central claim that Sally's doubt, jealousy, and ultimate confusion represent a thoroughly modern and disenchanted response to the fairy tale ideal.
- Introduction: Atwood and the Fairy Tale Inversion: Thesis: fairy tales fail real women's happiness
- Sally's Fairy Tale Life and Its Discontents: Sally's apparent ideal life masks deep doubt
- Character Contrasts: Ed Versus Bluebeard: Ed's appeal and flaws antagonize Sally's happiness
- Plot Differences and the Ambiguous Ending: Infidelity replaces Bluebeard's murderous climax
- Point-of-View and the Compounding of Doubt: Sally's subjective narration intensifies her confusion
- Conclusion: What Fairy Tales Cannot Provide: Women need love and reassurance beyond fairy tale trappings
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What makes this paper effective
- The thesis is clearly stated early and consistently supported: fairy tale circumstances do not equate to real happiness, and every section returns to this claim with fresh textual evidence.
- The comparative structure — pairing Perrault's "Bluebeard" against Atwood's revision across character, plot, and point-of-view — gives the argument logical organization and cumulative force.
- Close reading of specific quotations, particularly Sally's embrace of the refrigerator and her confused internal monologue after witnessing Ed and Marylynn, grounds abstract claims about doubt and dissatisfaction in the actual text.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses comparative literary analysis across a source text and its literary adaptation. By identifying deliberate deviations in characterization, narrative structure, and focalization, the writer shows how authorial choices create meaning — a core skill in literary criticism. Citing secondary scholarship (Merli, Ridout, Lyons, Hermansson) to contextualize the reading demonstrates integration of academic sources rather than mere summary.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a review of existing critical perspectives before asserting its own thesis. Each of the three body sections addresses a distinct literary element — character, plot, and point-of-view — following the same structural pattern: describe Perrault's version, contrast it with Atwood's, and explain what the difference reveals about the theme. The conclusion synthesizes these three strands and restates the central argument about women's needs beyond the fairy tale ideal.
Introduction: Atwood and the Fairy Tale Inversion
Conventional literary criticism pertaining to Margaret Atwood and her works of fiction tends to focus on the postmodern genre for which she is generally regarded as a purveyor. This scope of focus certainly applies to a body of criticism aimed at some of her shorter works of fiction, particularly those found in her collection Bluebeard's Egg. Carolyn Merli (2007) both mentions this propensity and is disposed to "consider the 'postmodern' strategies of one of Atwood's [stories in] Bluebeard's Egg." Postmodernists will find a variety of evidence to justify an analysis of Atwood's titular work from this perspective, such as her temporal displacements (Ridout 856), in which the narration leaps forward and backward in time despite chronicling a single dinner party.
In examining the work through such a lens, however, it may be easy to overlook one of the most important facets of this particular story. It is vital to understand that what Atwood has constructed with her version of the Bluebeard fairy tale is actually the inverse of a fairy tale itself. Atwood's work proves that fairy tale lives, endings, and mores are not enough for happiness, and that in their wake reign morasses of doubt and dissatisfaction.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Bluebeard's Egg. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983. Print.
Hermansson, Casie. "Found in Translation: Charles Perrault's 'Bluebeard' in the English Eighteenth Century." University of Toronto Quarterly. 76(2), 796–807. 2007. Print.
Lyons, Bonnie. "Bluebeard's Egg and Other Stories." Studies in Short Fiction. 24(3), 313–313. 1987. Print.
Merli, Carolyn. "Hatching the Posthuman: Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebeard's Egg.'" Journal of the Short Story in English. 48. 2007. Web. http://jsse.revues.org/780
Ridout, Alice. "Temporality and Margaret Atwood." University of Toronto Quarterly. 69(4), 849–870. 2000. Print.
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