figure
Raoul Bluebeard
Raoul
also: Рауль Синяя Борода, Раулю Синей Бороды
The fictional narrator of this parody letter-to-the-editor: a self-styled practical, put-upon husband who claims to have poisoned all seven of his wives not from cruelty but from a litany of petty domestic grievances, writing to rebut an operetta (based on the Bluebeard legend) that he says slanders him.
Reading notes
- My Wives §1 RAOUL BLUEBEARD
The story is framed as an indignant letter to a newspaper editor from the title character of a stage operetta -- the classic French folktale villain Bluebeard, who murders his wives, here given the first name Raoul and made to protest that his portrayal on stage is a defamatory exaggeration.