The Jewish origin of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

In honour of the Halloween season (and more immediately, of my costume tonight), I wanted to write about the Jewish origin of the Corpse Bride, because despite the goth glamour of the story, it is in fact based on the 17th century Russian-Jewish folktale 'The Finger'. When I heard about this, it actually made a lot of sense, because the flip side of a story about a tragic murdered bride breaking into the land of the living is an exploration of the binding legality of the marriage contract, both comic and cautionary. In 'The Finger', a nearly-to-be-wed young man takes a midnight walk with his friends in the woods (weird stag do, but sure), when they spy a finger-like object sticking out of the ground. When they realise it is indeed a finger, instead of being horrified, the groom-to-be decides to practice his vows early, reciting the sacred promise three times. As this is also done in the presence of two witnesses (his friends), the story cleverly sets up a situation where the land of the living must grapple with the bind of a transcendent marital bond which seemingly goes beyond all reason and the laws of the natural world. The tale teaches the importance of taking words, specifically vows, seriously lest they become curses, of respecting corpses and burials, and of doing our best to keep the living and dead realms separate.

In the movie, the Land of the Dead (not present in the original folktale) provides a rich visual and spiritual duality between the gloomy living world and festive world of death, which also serves to highlight the inescapability of suffering and loss even in the release of the underworld - a truly gothic sensibility. And so it makes sense that the ending of the movie deviates slightly from the resolution of the original folktale, wherein once the marriage is found to be invalid on technicalities by the rabbi, the corpse bride is simply buried deeper, and the betrothed couple married to the relief of their families. In the movie, however, Emily has an integral role in reuniting the couple, and is finally transformed into butterflies - a sublime and slightly nihilistic acknowledgement that neither realm will grant her ultimate peace. Unlike the legalistic framing of the original story, Burton's ending invokes a metamorphosis that evades religious categorisation, harnessing nature to suddenly consume bride as if in place of her long-awaited marital consummation. So although it might have been nice to see some references to the cultural origin of this story in the movie, I loved the way Burton interpreted the folktale and balanced the story between Victor and Emily, acknowledging the latter's identity as a tragic individual in her own right rather than as a legal challenge to the functioning of polite society.