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Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most prolific if not best American writers of the second half of the twentieth century, first earned a reputation for himself as a science-fictionist with his early works, The Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle. This reputation, however much it vastly underestimates and misunderstands Vonnegut's work and its significance to the modern era, has been difficult for Vonnegut to escape. It does, however, provide insight into the aspects of the modern situation that Vonnegut sees as central and meaningful. Bluebeard, which trades a more traditionally Vonnegut mad scientist for a retired, eccentric expressionist painter, the same painter from Breakfast of Champions, tackles the issues which have traditionally blurred Vonnegut's role in the literary and popular fiction traditions. This article explores these issues within Vonnegut's version of the fairytale, Bluebeard.