When a human experience repeats itself, stories are born. One of such is the story of Bluebeard. And literally hundreds of others, Stephen King’s “Shining” or “Beauty and the Beast” included. As we learn about them, we can get in charge of our narrative. Write our own stories – and lives.
The youngest of three sisters agrees to marry a famous hunter Bluebeard. He is a man (or a giant) with a blue beard. Bluebeard is rich and charming, so she decides to live with him in his castle and enjoys happy days together. One day he goes away on business (or hunting) and gives her a bunch of keys, forbidding her to use one. Which she does anyway. The room is covered in blood and dead bodies of Bluebeard’s ex wives. Upon his return, Bluebeard discovers her disobedience and decides to kill her. While awaiting the execution, she calls out for help to her sisters/brothers/parents that come to her rescue and break into the house.
Many interpretations tell us a hunter always remains dangerous, so we should be careful when choosing our partners. Others warn us against curiosity. An ideal otherwise partner asks his spouse to respect his privacy and we get punished if we fail to do so. Common narrative is fearful. What if we are wrong? What if the tale highlights where we get hung up on, what will happen if we blindly repeat our mistakes without thinking? I do not believe Bluebeard has to be a man, it does not even have to be a separate person. This tale may be telling us about our attitude towards our own experience.
I like to think of our human psychiques as if they were apartments. Every apartment has a kitchen, a bathroom, some place to sleep. Most of them have windows, although one can imagine a place that does not have any. It is up to us how we decorate our living room, what furniture do we choose, or if we want to keep the place plain and raw. It is up to us what we make of our apartments, and if we keep the place tidy. Many of us have a room which we do not like our guests to see. That is where we keep our dirty laundry or our sexual gadgets which we don’t want anyone to talk about. We may be hesitant to show our current partner what did sex with our exes look like, or why did we break up. That is not something to get rid of, it still shaped us, just isn’t for show. Maybe this place holds some memories we don’t want to share with anyone. Maybe our dog is unfriendly with strangers so we need to close him in that room every time someone pays us a visit. That is where we keep our dragons. We may not want anyone to get hurt or interfere with our most private sides. That is how I see the room with bloodied corpses of Bluebeard’s exes.
Even strong men are afraid that their beloved partner may discover their dark secrets. She may learn things we are not so proud of, she may stop loving us or become afraid. It is hard to love and not fear, for fear limits our experience of pleasure. It takes real courage to face our fear of being seen, to risk that our partner may not understand. That is what many of us do, we run away from that possibility, we may not even give them a chance to get familiar with deeply hidden or wounded parts of us. We write off one partner after another, once they discover our wounds.
Bluebeard is a hunter. As we experience the world in the antagonistic terms, we seek our partners to comply with our wishes. We allow, we forbid, we order and create unequal relationships. Power is an illusion, our partners may respect some of our asks and do whatever they feel like when we are not around. Our childlike curiosity is naturally drawn to the forbidden, or the wounds that we carry. We want to explore, we want to know more about the other person, discover all of their secrets. We may just playfully wander to the repressed areas of our own psyche, only to be frozen in terror when we discover we have been fooled. Fearful part of us may then decide to exterminate what has been until recently bringing us joy. That makes the things for us only worse, as we keep killing one wife after another, making the forbidden room only more scary.
What if we could change the narrative? Instead of acting out of short-sightedness, what if we stopped for a moment and explored other actions to take?
Imagine a scenario where Bluebeard accepted his wife as his equal. He trusted her good will and did not try to limit her playfulness. He may have opened the bloodied chamber to her, but instead of leaving it all to fate, he may have been there by her side, held her hand while she learned about his past and his darkest experiences. While no woman wants to be accomplice in crime, she may have recognised that the chamber is not necessarily something Bluebeard is proud of. Having it within his castle is probably way more uncomfortable and difficult for him than it is for her to appreciate its existence. Okay, he is a dangerous creature that may kill her like he did with many others – but didn’t she already know that when she agreed to marry him?
All of us hold such chambers, no matter how much we wish we did not. Ability to integrate them into our lives makes our human existence more harmonic and pleasurable. It is shame that tells us to hide and deny parts of ourselves.
While Bluebeard may have had no influence over his partner’s reaction, he can always look for one that reacts with kindness. Introducing compassion to the equation may earn her some respect in her husband’s eyes, he may as well be able to lean on her and heal. She could help him clean the blood off the floor, bury the bodies of the ex wives, create memorials that he could remember the ex wives by. Bloody chamber may become a place to reflect on our mistakes made. It could be a place we could proudly show to the world saying “This is what I have overcome to become who I am now”.
