[1][2] The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors.

[5] In one version of the story, Bluebeard is a wealthy and powerful nobleman who has been married six times to beautiful women who have all mysteriously vanished.

She immediately discovers that the room is flooded with blood and the murdered corpses of Bluebeard's previous six wives hanging on hooks from the walls.

One source is believed to have been the 15th-century convicted serial killer Gilles de Rais, a nobleman who fought alongside Joan of Arc and became both Marshal of France and her official protector, then was hanged and burned as a murderous witch.

[7] However, Gilles de Rais did not kill his wife, nor were any bodies found on his property, and the crimes for which he was convicted involved the sexually driven, brutal murder of children rather than women.

Pregnant, she flees; he catches and beheads her, but St. Gildas miraculously restores her to life, and when he brings her to Conomor, the walls of his castle collapse and kill him.

[13] It shows the beast as secretly compassionate, and someone meant to curb the intense sexual fear that young women have of marriage.

Though "Beauty and the Beast" holds several similarities in Gothic imagery to "Bluebeard" (such as is shared with Cupid and Psyche as well, in the case of a mysterious captor, a looming castle, and a young, beautiful heroine), Tatar goes on to state that the latter tale lives on the entire opposite side of the spectrum: one in which, instead of female placation, the tale simply aggravates women's apprehension, confirming one's "worst fears about sex".

[15] For psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, Bluebeard can only be considered a fairy-tale because of the magical bleeding key; otherwise, it would just be a monstrous horror story.

In Alex Garland's film Ex Machina (2014), Nathan is an internet mogul who designs robots with a human female body inside his home.

Artists such as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Harry Clarke, Jennie Harbour, and others portrayed Bluebeard with an Oriental appearance, wearing clothing such as a turban, a vibrantly colored silk robe, and pointed slippers, carrying a scimitar.

[24][27] Dulac in particular was known for incorporating such themes into his work,[28] and his lavish illustrations of the tale are often cited as prime examples of the trend, with Anna Guiterrez calling them "[an] Oriental [fantasy]".

[30] Another recognized influence is the 1798 opera The Grand Dramatic Romance Blue-Beard, or Female Curiosity by George Colman the Younger, composed by Michael Kelly.

On a psychological level, Marina Warner has noted the similarities between the French words for "beard" and "barbarian" (barbe and barbare, respectively), which she theorized lead to artists such as Rackham portraying the king as "a Turk in pantaloons and turban, who rides an elephant, and grasps his wife by the hair when he prepares to behead her with his scimitar.

"[32] Tatar further theorized in a later article that the apparent mismatch between Orientalist illustrations and the story's European origin stemmed from the violent plot clashing with the prim morals of society at the time, writing "After all, it's much more comforting for the French reader to think of such marital discord and violence as having taken place long ago and far away, rather than at home in today's France.

"[33] Kelly Faircloth also noted this discrepancy, citing the illustrations as "pushing the whole disquieting tale into the geographic and cultural distance".

Lang was displeased with the Orientalist themes in then-current illustration, seeing it as a deliberate masking of the story's European origins, and commented in the introduction to the first volume of the series, 1889's The Blue Fairy Book: "Monsieur de la Barbe Bleue was not a Turk!...They were all French folk and Christians; had he been a Turk, Blue Beard need not have wedded to but one wife at a time.

In Charles Dickens' short story "Captain Murderer" (1860), the title character is described as "an offshoot of the Bluebeard family".

He meets his demise after his sister-in-law, in revenge for the death of her sister (his next-to-last wife), marries him and consumes a deadly poison just before he kills and eats her.

Bluebeard is a generous, kind-hearted, wealthy nobleman called Bertrand de Montragoux who marries a succession of grotesque, adulterous, difficult, or simple-minded wives.

[45] In Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Blue-Bearded Lover", the most recent wife is well aware of Bluebeard's murdered wives: she does not unlock the door to the forbidden room, and therefore avoids death herself.

Mary questions Mr. Fox about why he writes about killing women who have transgressed patriarchal laws, making him aware of how his words normalize domestic violence.