Being come to the closet door, she made a stop for some time, thinking upon her husband’s orders, and considering what unhappiness might attend her if she was disobedient, but the temptation was so strong she could not overcome it.
Forbidden fruit is the sweetest. Everyone knows how strong a temptation can be and how difficult it is to resist it. The young wife is perfectly aware that according to “her husband’s orders” she shouldn’t enter the room. She does realize that great “unhappiness might attend her” if she dares to break the order. But “the temptation was so strong she could not overcome it” and gives in. They say that curiosity kills the cat and the young wife proves this saying, for her inquisitiveness almost costs her a life.
I very well know, you were resolved to go into the closet, were you not? Mighty well, Madam; you shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there.
Bluebeard doesn’t encourage disobedience. Not to mention, that he seems to be not only merciless but unforgiving too. It was he who gave his young wife key and fueled her curiosity. He did it only to be able to say that she was “resolved to go into the closet” from the very beginning. And now she has to “go in” and take her “place among the ladies” she saw there. It reminds of a sadistic game. He is just like a cat, which lets a mice go just to catch it in a moment.
She made use of one part of it to marry her sister Anne to a young gentleman who had loved her a long while; another part to buy captains’ commissions for her brothers; and the rest to marry herself to a very worthy gentleman.
One might think that the young lady marries Bluebeard because of his money but it is not like that. She really believes that he can be a worthy man. When it turns out to be that she is wrong, she proves that she is not a selfish and spoiled child but a person with a good heart. She marries “her sister Anne to a young gentleman” buys “captains’ commissions for her brothers” and only then she does something for herself.
