Abstract
Between 1866 and 1874 Anne Thackeray Ritchie published nine revisions of classic fairy tales, such as: “Beauty and the Beast,” “Bluebeard,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” Ritchie’s novella Bluebeard’s Keys (1874) is not only one of the more subversive narratives among these revisions but also, demonstrably, the most personally inflected fairy tale she undertook to rewrite. This essay begins with an exploration of the extratextual reality that informs Bluebeard’s Keys and its revisionary relation to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard.” The focus then turns to the intertextual grid in which Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” (1979) converges with diverse particulars in Perrault’s and Ritchie’s versions. Among the main points considered in this analysis are the distinct ways that an illicit erotic dimension of experience leaves its mark on a range of situations in Bluebeard’s Keys and “The Bloody Chamber.”
Recommended Citation
Barzilai, Shuli. "The Infernal Desire Machines in Anne Thackeray Ritchie’s Bluebeard’s Keys and Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber”." Marvels & Tales 22.1 (2008). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol22/iss1/7>.
