Grimms Märchen, Blaubart - Blut & Dinge

Typical of a number of fairy tales rich in blind spots is the absence of the motif of revenge and retribution. A harmless tease, a minor offense, or a mere chance circumstance marks the beginning of so-called farce, puzzle, and formula tales, thereby opening a series of acts that suggest an out-of-control or quietly operating revenge action. Often, the desire for revenge is directed against landlords or hosts, preferably also against the residents and visitors of the house and yard, to compensate for an unspecified injustice. It may be that the situations presented here seem simple and understandable, as the preface of the two brothers acknowledges with regard to starving parents, abandoned children, and cruel stepmothers, because "true poetry can never be without relation to life." However, the solutions that arise from the dilemma of competition for beauty, gnawing hunger, unfulfilled desires for children, or the imposition of children who slaughter each other are just as disturbing as they are dark. For Robert Darnton, fairy tales—specifically the French fairy tales of the 18th century—are an arena of raw and unfiltered brutality, which includes "rape and sodomy, up to incest and cannibalism.".