History Literature / Bluebeard

Then he leaves the house on business, sometimes for days at a time, and the woman gets bored and eaten up with curiosity about [[ForbiddenFruit the door she is not supposed to open]], so finally she goes and opens it. (In some versions Bluebeard merely points out the key as forbidden, and the woman tries the key in all the doors of the house until she finds the right chamber.) When she opens the door, she finds the blood-spattered dead bodies of all the former wives of Bluebeard, whom he murdered for their money. She flees in horror and tries to act as if nothing happened, but when Bluebeard returns he invariably finds out what she has done, one way or the other (sometimes by finding traces of blood on her shoes or the key she dropped in fright), and threatens to kill her, too, for betraying his trust. Depending on the version of the tale, she is saved by the arrival of her relatives who kill Bluebeard, or, after having been locked up, manages to flee and alert the authorities.

Then he leaves the house on business, sometimes for days at a time, and the woman gets bored and eaten up with curiosity about [[ForbiddenFruit the door she is not supposed to open]], so finally she goes and opens it. (In some versions Bluebeard merely points out the key as forbidden, and the woman tries the key in all the doors of the house until she finds the right chamber.) When she opens the door, she finds the blood-spattered dead bodies of all the former wives of Bluebeard who he murdered for their money. She flees in horror and tries to act as if nothing happened, but when Bluebeard returns he invariably finds out what she has done, one way or the other (sometimes by finding traces of blood on her shoes or the key she dropped in fright), and threatens to kill her, too, for betraying his trust. Depending on the version of the tale, she is saved by the arrival of her relatives who kill Bluebeard, or, after having been locked up, manages to flee and alert the authorities.

* WealthyEverAfter: The wife is Bluebeard's only heir.

* A villain named Bluebeard appeared in the 1949 WesternAnimation/PorkyPig short "Bye Bye Bluebeard", where he was wolf-like and did, indeed, have a blue beard. (He was [[VileVillainSaccharineShow far more evil]] than most ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' villains, tying poor Porky up and building a guillotine to use on him. Fortunately for Porky, this version is a VillainousGlutton, and he's saved when a mouse tricks Bluebeard into eating bombs disguised as popovers.)

* Hungarian opera ''Theatre/DukeBluebeardsCastle'') by Music/BelaBartok and its TV and cinema adaptations stray rather far from the original into symbolism bordering on MindScrew. Bluebeard shows his fourth wife the rooms of his castle, one by one, uncovering depths of his psyche. The doors may just as well be [[TeleportersAndTransporters portals]] to someplace else and from the last room emerge Bluebeard's three previous wives as living effigies who take the new one with them, completing his collection.

* Hungarian opera ''Blubeard's Castle'' (or ''Duke Blubeard's Castle'') by Music/BelaBartok and its TV and cinema adaptations stray rather far from the original into symbolism bordering MindScrew. Blubeard shows his fourth wife the rooms of his castle, one by one, uncovering depths of his psyche. The doors may just as well be [[TeleportersAndTransporters portals]] to someplace else and from the last room emerge three previous wives -- still alive and well -- who take the new one with them.

-->''"Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,''
-->''Lest your heart’s blood should run cold."''

* TheBluebeard: TropeNamer, about the man who is discovered to have killed his previous wives for money and stuffed their bodies in his secret room.

-->''For it is not so, and it was not so,''
-->''And God forbid that it should be so!''

This story has given name to a specific kind of SerialKiller, "TheBluebeard," who kills a succession of wives.

* ''Film/Bluebeard1944'', a film noir based on the fairy tale featuring a murderous artist played by John Carradine.
* ''Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons'', a 1960 British thriller movie directed by W. Lee Wilder and starring George Sanders.

** Subverted in the "Mr. Fox" variation, where it makes sense that her relatives are there to save her. She waits to expose Mr. Fox until she, he, and the rest of her family and suitors are at her pre-wedding breakfast.

* The TabletopGame ''Bluebeard's Bride'' casts the players in the roles of the Bride's [[SplitPersonality fragmented personalities]] as she explores the castle's rooms and decides whether what she finds in them (which is typically horrific) increases or decreases her suspicions about her husband, which influences her ultimate fate when she reaches the room he forbade her to enter.