F
AR FROM UNEVENTFUL, the daily existence of Mme d’Aulnoy (l650[1]–1705) was interwoven with drama and mystery. Her pulsat- ing psyche led her to penetrate both the light and shadow sides of human nature. So sensitive was her understanding of a person’s capacit y for suffering, loving, and hating, and so perceptive was she of hidden jealousies, rancors, and unrealized cruelties, and their opposites, kindnesses and con- sideration for others, that her fairy tales, The Bluebird in particular, live on as human documents of the soul.E
CTYPALA
NALYSISOf noble birth, the beautiful, curly-haired, blonde Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, was a native of Normandy. Following the death of her father, her mother, Judith-Angélique, remarried a Marquis Gudane, about whom no information has thus far become available. In 1666, in cahoots with her lover, Courboyer, Mme Gudane married off her fifteen- or sixteen year-old daughter to the ostensibly rich François de la Motte, baron d’Aulnoy. From the outset, this man had t wo strikes against him: fort y-six years of age, he was three times older than his wife, and as for his character, he was unpleas- ant, debauched, and impet uous. Despite her dislike for her husband, Mme
d’Aulnoy gave birth to six children; the first t wo of which died shortly after birth ( the last t wo, it was presumed, had not been fathered by her husband). The ostensibly wealthy baron d’Aulnoy, who had either lost all of his money or had never had any to begin with, was faced with mounting debts. Cloak- and-dagger episodes soon followed. Accused of the crime of lèse majesté whether by his wife, his mother-in-law, and/or “t wo friends” remains un- known, he was imprisoned. Thanks to his connections, he easily worked his way out of what he and his lawyers proved to be trumped-up charges. Fol- lowing his release, the “t wo friends,” were sent to the Bastille. Under tor- t ure, they confessed that Mme Gudane, who had grown to despise the baron, had hatched the plot, and the t wo were executed in l669 (Barchilon,
Le conte merveilleux français 1690–1790 37–51).
Facts concerning Mme d’Aulnoy’s implication in this scandalous affair are sparse, and whether she had participated in the conspiracy against him is unclear. We know only that she was separated from her husband in 1670. Whether she felt any guilt for the deaths of the t wo culprits who were exe- cuted is questionable. Nor are we certain as to whether she had been arrested for complicit y in the lèse majesté accusation. If so, her important connections must have been used to effect her release without trial. By contrast, so great was Mme Gudane’s fear of imprisonment that she, apparently left for Spain never to return. Did her daughter join her mother in Madrid? Did she then venture to England, as some critics have suggested? We know only that, upon Mme d’Aulnoy’s return to Paris in 1690, she took up residence in a convent, her only possibilit y for obtaining permission to live in the capital. The re- maining years of her life were spent writing and enjoying the company of lit- erary friends. After 1692, she became a regular member of Mme de Lambert’s literary salon which included Mlle de La Force, l’abbé de Choisy, and Fénelon. The many topics broached during their Wednesday meetings, encouraged oral presentations of fairy tales (Barchilon).
That Mme d’Aulnoy was drawn to the fairy tale genre is evident in her first work, Hippolytus Earl of Douglas (1690), well known for its provocative theme of incest. Her following literary ventures touched on Spain, a very fashionable country at the time: Memoirs of the Court of Spain (1690) and Trav-
els into Spain (1691). In keeping with the heavily religious tenor and suppli-
cant mood of the times—one of the consequences of Louis XIV’s marriage to the ultra-“devout” Mme de Maintenon—our author also dipped into devo- tional literature, as attested to in Sentiments of a Penitent Soul (1691) and A
Soul’s Return to God (1692). Another vein was struck with the publication of
her Memoirs of the Court of England (1695). But it was her Tales of the Fairies
in Three Parts (1697–1698) and her New Tales or Fairies in Fashion (1698) that
While imaginative and charming, Mme d’Aulnoy is best known for the finesse of her protagonists’ observations about themselves and the world about them. Her forays into dreams and preternatural, or magical happen- ings add metaphysical dimension to her narratives. Not be overlooked are the metamorphoses of some of her characters within the paradoxically realis- tic/fantastic frame she conjures for her readers. In keeping with the fairy tale mode in seventeenth-century France, Mme d’Aulnoy’s works were not writ- ten exclusively for children. On the contrary, they were written for adults and designed to educate as well as to entertain.
Like many of the romanesque novels of her day, Mme d’Aulnoy’s writ- ings broached significant subjects, such as torture, imprisonment, injustice, and rebellion, and invited readers to identify with events and characters. Un- like the many redundant writings of some of her contemporaries, Mme d’Aulnoy’s succinct and tightly-knit st yle was enriched by details of the living conditions, traditions, etiquette, and refined social habits of her protagonists. Elaborate feasts, masked balls, magnificent clothes, luxurious fabrics, elegant interiors, unusual knick-knacks, and impressive jewels, embedded in a truly rococo atmosphere, heightened the paradoxically realistic nature of the su- pernatural beings she brought into focus.
A
RCHETYPALA
NALYSISTHE MYSTERIES OF METAMORPHOSES. The mysteries of inter- and/or intra- human metamorphoses, whether involving the transformation of people into animals or vice versa, are infinite. Their inexplicabilit y or, for some, their miraculous nature, may have encouraged some organized and nonorganized religions to include certain instances of physical permutations in their credos. Since the beginning of humankind, Homo sapiens has called upon visible and/or invisible powers—be they Gods, Goddesses, or demons—to help un- ravel the enigmas of the unknown and confront seemingly irremediable problems. In ages past, many believed that the superhuman divine or de- monic power lodged in a fish, insect, animal, or t wo-, three-, or four-legged creature could alter a devastating or dazzling life experience. While some may still find comfort and help in age-old religious motifs, others may draw upon the sciences, psychology, crystallography, exercise, meditation, magic, and other healing processes for an answer to the unfathomable.
Prophetic disclosures in apocalyptic and scientific writings foretelling the advent of cosmic or climatic catastrophes have spurred humans both to accept the end of life as we know it, and to look toward the nat ural world for consolation and emotional therapy. To gain a sense of relatedness with
surrounding nat ure and an expanded communit y of feeling toward one’s environment and universe is, indeed, comforting. Because in past ages cer- tain trees, bushes, and other fetishes were, and for some still are, endowed with indwelling spirits, they were invested with sacralit y: the Djed Column for Osiris, the boddhi tree for Buddha, mistletoe for Druids, the Tree of Life for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. All lent and continue to lend wor- shippers feelings of support and connectedness. May it not also be sug- gested that, diversit y in the animal and plant worlds, paradoxically, imparts a sense of unit y to those plunged in adversit y? Don’t totemism, fetishism, zoomorphism, to mention but a few of these credos, invite people to proj- ect characteristics, impulses, instincts, thoughts, or feelings onto existing or fabulous animals, plants, or other entities they believe will care for them?
The recognition of earthly or celestial wonder-working forces, if re- garded as projections of inner psychic contents, may provide individuals and societies with a sense of authenticit y and purpose. The kinship felt bet ween divinities, humans, and animals is nowhere better conveyed than in the Ramayana, with the transformation of one of the protagonists of this Hindu epic into a deer. Egyptians worshipped many of their deities in the form of animals: Sekhmet/lionness, Horus/hawk, Apis/bull, Hathor/cow, Bast/cat, Ra/snake, Ba/bird, and so forth. To them they t urned for help in time of need. Hadn’t the biblical Solomon conversed with the hoopo bird? In cer- tain pre-Islamic legends, to this same king’s famous visitor, the Queen of Sheba (Bilqis), were attributed ass’s hooves and webbed feet. The Bible tells of Balaam’s she-donkey speaking words of wisdom (Numbers 22: 1–14). Griffons, ostriches, geese, sirens, harpies, dragons, mermaids, amphibious creatures of all t ypes were depicted in medieval bestiaries. Sibyls and oracles at Delphi, Dodona, Cumae, or elsewhere, were frequently feat ured with wings and webbed feet. Did not the heads of animals symbolize three of the four Evangelists?—the lion for Mark, a cow or ox for Luke, and an eagle for John. The Holy Spirit was revealed to Mar y in the form of a white dove. Devils with horns, claws, talons, hooves, webbed fingers, or goatlike cloven hoofs have paraded in frantic and frenetic disarray in cult worship through- out the centuries.
Humanized animals endowed with intellectual and emotional character- istics representing human vices, follies, and virtues have been featured in folk narratives and literary works—the Fables of the Greek Aesop (560–520 B.C.E.) and those of the Latin fabulist, Phaedrus (15 B.C.E.–50C.E.), and such writings as Apuleius’s Golden Ass (125C.E.), the Metamorphoses of Ovid (43 B.C.E.–17 C.E.), the Decameron of Boccaccio (1313–1375), the Canterbury Tales (“The Man of Lawe’s Tale”) by Chaucer (1330–1400), A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare (1564–1616), and the Fables of La Fontaine (1621–1695). Nor was
it uncommon for authors to portray nonhumans as more clever than Homo
sapiens, even rendering them at times as their teachers.
The medieval Christian-oriented mystery play may be analogized to hu- mankind’s need to adjust and readjust to ever-altering empirical situations and relationships. Real and imagined worlds cohabited on the stage platform in these religious spectacles, in which a higher power manifested himself as an earthly being, or as an animal, plant, or other kind of creature. Spectators, projecting onto the metamorphoses were, psychologically speaking, trans- formed as well. Their broadening of outlooks toward certain situations that resulted from the alteration of their feeling and thinking functions, may have opened them up to new alternatives vis-à-vis the obstacles confronting them. Similar modifications occurred in Mme d’Aulnoy’s The Bluebird. The hero, Prince Charming, was transformed into a bird; the heroine, adapting to this situation, set out on her rite of passage. Readers of the fairy tale may be en- couraged by her strength and integrit y to do likewise on a psychological level—transforming their limited approach to empirical situations into a broader and all-encompassing one.
Instrumental as well in triggering unconscious compensatory sensa- tions in the reader may be the occult practices described in Mme d’Aulnoy’s text. Lingering memory images in The Bluebird, reminiscent in some ways of Proust’s technique in Remembrance of Things Past, may, for some resurrect by- gone happenings in the psyche. The multiple sensations triggered by Mme d’Aulnoy’s images—the bird, forest, castle, good and evil creatures—and the expanded consciousness to which they give rise, may help readers deal with their own difficulties (Jung, Visions Seminars I, 43; II, 489).
WAS ITBEREAVEMENT? OR BEWITCHMENT? Mme d’Aulnoy had more than likely found inspiration for The Bluebird in a short narrative in verse, The Lai
of the Nightingale, by the t welfth century French writer, Marie de France. The
latter’s tale revolves around an unhappily married woman whose lover visits her in her tower home in the form of a nightingale. During these interludes, he reveals his passion for her in his warblings, which she interprets in keep- ing with her feeling world. Similarly, Mme d’Aulnoy’s fictionalized Bluebird talks, feels, senses, and probes his own heart and psyche, and that of his beloved as well.
The tale opens on a memorable scene: a wealthy and powerful king is so distressed by the death of his wife that he locks himself in his room and spends his time knocking his head against its walls. His courtiers, fearing he might kill himself, hang mattresses about the room and in vain try to cheer him with sympathetic, sad, or merry tales. One day, a lady bedecked in a black mantle, veils, and robes comes to visit the king. So excessive is her sorrow for
her deceased husband, that she wails and shrieks uncontrollably. They mutu- ally lament the death of their spouses, but as the king’s sympathy for the lady in black mounts, thoughts of his wife diminish proportionately, to the point of disappearing. When the lady in mourning reveals to the king that she wants to spend the rest of her life weeping for her deceased husband, the king asks her “not to immortalize her chagrin” (The Bluebird 74). That he marries his vis- itor comes as no surprise to the reader. In summing up the incident with her usual deftness, Mme d’Aulnoy notes: “To be aware of the weaknesses of peo- ple is frequently sufficient to gain entry into their heart and to manipulate it as one sees fit” (Bluebird 74).
The emotionally vulnerable (Lat. vulnerare, to wound), king, it may be said, having been wounded by his bereavement, was subject to infection and disease. His knocking of the head against the wall indicates not only the seat of his problem, but his morbid intent to further damage and fragment his thinking function. Indeed, so cut up was he, so to speak, that the lady in mourning, like an expert therapist, knew just how to further break down his virtually nonexistent defenses. While her lamentations gave the impression of sorrow for herself and sympathy for him, she was, in fact, beginning to voice an imperative agenda of her own. Manipulative and clever, this highly functional woman was an expert in the art of conditioning the king to ac- cepting whatever situation she had in mind. It was she who set the stage for the growth of a new dominant in his psyche: the dependent, regressive, som- atization of his ego-consciousness.
Could the king’s complete subservience and blindness to the lady in mourning be alluded to as a bewitchment? Certainly, since falling under the in- f luence or spell of a malignant power, or enslavement by a human being, in- dicates the ego’s submission to an outside force. Indeed, the monarch’s emotional divestiture due to his wife’s death had been so complete that his meeting with this powerful woman whose sorrow seemed to replicate his own endowed him with a sense of communalit y. Knowing that others could suffer as deeply as he provided him with a sense of togetherness and thus comfort. The interplay of what he took to be their mutual pain, elicited in him a need to be magnanimous—to play the grand role of king—which might enhance his self-image. His complete misunderstanding of her intent, and of his abilit y to guide her to more positive activities, served only to increase his emotional dependency on her. The pragmatic lady in mourning, by contrast, uninterested in love, feeling, or relatedness, had but one goal in mind: to play the role of a controlling power in her victim’s life.
THE CONTROLLING FEMININE. Immediately after having assumed the queenship, she moved toward achieving her primary goal—that of marrying
her ugly daughter, Truitone, to a wealthy noble. Daily, she jealously eyed the king’s beautiful daughter, Florine, as her despair over the ugliness of her own mounted. She suggested to the king that since both their daughters were fif- teen years old, they should be wed—her daughter first, then his. Unwilling to “dispute” her wishes, the monarch accepted her proposal (Bluebird 75).
Florine (Lat. flos, floris), named after the Goddess of f lowers and of springtime, who is imaged so beautifully on Pompeiian frescos, was not only externally exquisite, but was adorned internally with lovely attributes or character traits. Usually a symbol of Edenic purit y and nature’s ephemeralit y, the f loral world has also been identified with inner attitudes of tenderness, gentilit y, and consideration. Loving to her father, and to all those around her, it may be said that like the f lower, Florine related to both earthly and celestial spheres, the former because her feet were firmly implanted in realit y, the lat- ter since she yearned for spiritual transcendence.
Implicit in the name Truitone is its onomastic identification with the triton or with the French truite, or speckled trout (from the Greek troktes <
trogein, to gnaw). Like the fish, Truitone was oily (her hair) and blotched (her
face). Ugly externally, her personalit y was equally unsightly: jealous and vin- dictive, she was a mirror image of her mother. Unlike the queen, however, she was neither cunning nor clever. That Truitone bore the name of a fish identi- fies her with the water element, which, according to the sages of antiquit y, en- abled her to see her shadow, doppelgänger, or soul image whenever she peered into this transparent medium. Would she, working in tandem with her mother, be empowered to evoke demons by burning candles around a cir- cular vessel filled with water, as was believed possible in the Middle Ages (Franz, Projection 184)?
THE QUEEN’S WITCHLIKE ADUMBRATIO. Let us note that when the queen first met the enfeebled king, knowing exactly how to attack his vulnerabilit y/ woundedness, she pretended to bond with him in their mutual sorrow. His ailing mental state combined with his self-destructive acts had transformed him into a passive recipient of whatever the queen suggested. Taking full ad- vantage of his diminished will to live, she was empowered to cast over him her adumbratio (Lat. ad, umbra, shadow), or distorted, venomous, rancorous, and unlived aspects of her personalit y.
The master/slave dynamic that the witchlike queen (M.E. wicche, sor- cerer; L. vincere, to conquer, victor, wicked) had set in place allowed her to play out her scenario. Reminiscent of the Egyptian demon, Set, who, driven by jeal- ousy, cut up his brother Osiris into fourteen pieces, the queen would focus on the psychological dismemberment of her daughter’s rival—Florine. Having made a pact with evil spirits, that is, her own psychologically nefarious
unconscious propensities, this all-too-human witchlike woman proceeded to spread her malignant authorit y in all domains.
Shortly following the royal couple’s decision to marry off Truitone and Florine, a stereot ypically handsome, radiant, delightful, but not overly bright Prince Charming arrived at the palace. The queen’s tactic of denigrating Florine rather than enhancing her own daughter’s image served to diminish Truitone. Instead of being taken in by the queen’s self-serving manner, the prince was shocked by her comportment. Moreover, her unctuous attempts to dismember Florine psychologically by emphasizing what she considered to