Fitchers Bird VS Robbers Bridegroom VS BlueBeard

Fitchers Bird and Robbers Bridegroom are both variations of BlueBeard. These 3 tales are similar in 3 aspects: The woman married a “nightmare”, the way the man was killed and the way to show distrust. The tales are also unique with their ending.

 In each of the tales, the woman married a “nightmare”. In Fitchers Bird, the woman married a sorcerer like man that used his magic to deceive others. In Robbers Bridegroom, the woman married a robber who instilled horror in his bride’s heart. In BlueBeard, the woman married an ugly man who lured women to be with him.

            The man was killed at the end of each tale in a different way. In Fitchers Bird, the man and his followers were burned alive. In Robbers Bridegroom, the man and his cohorts were all killed when it was revealed they were thieves. In BlueBeard, the man was stabbed with swords by the woman’s brothers.

            An item was used to show the distrust between the man and woman. In Fitchers Bird, a key to a room full of corpses and an egg were used to show distrust between the woman and the sorcerer. In Robbers Bridegroom, the woman’s grandmother’s severed finger with a golden ring was shown to legitimize the claims the woman made. In BlueBeard, a key was used to show the mistrust between the woman and the man.

            These 3 tales are very similar and unique. Not many of the Grimm Tales and other fairytales we analyzed have gruesome endings. The Disney adaptations of tales such as Briar Rose, Aschenputtel, and Little Snow White, all had happy endings with a “happily ever after.” So if we only stayed strictly to Grimm history and Disney adaptations, we would never get to stories that broke “the norm.” With these gruesome endings, these tales also showed that “nightmarish” side of marriage and it isn’t always “happily ever after” like in Disney adapted films.

 

Honestly, I didn’t like any of these stories because I couldn’t get attached to the characters. By that I mean I barely got to know them, and root for or against them. On my soap opera, a character named Levi was on the show for about 5 months, and I got to hate him as much as a fictional character can be hated. When he was murdered, I was so elated that he got what he deserved. I didn’t get that feeling of satisfaction when the men in the 3 stories were killed/murdered/executed.

 

                                    

 

Fitchers Bird: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153122456056368794/

Robber Bridegroom: http://www.focusfeatures.com/slideshow/what_are_the_grimm_brothers_doing_in_hanna?film=hanna

BlueBeard: http://wordsmith.org/words/bluebeard.html