Bluebeard’s secret and the resolution of the riddle 

Bluebeard is summoned up to illustrate the elaboration of primal anxieties associated with the archaic maternal imago, anxieties which are suggested by Perrault’s fairytale, Bartok’s opera, and Minerve’s analysis. References to the mirror-shield that protected Perseus, and to Oedipus’s reply to the riddle of the Sphinx are used to describe the conditions for a symbolization process in analytic treatment.