The Femme Fatale in American Literature By Ghada Sasa

I argue that, even though these women struggle and may at some point succeed in overcoming these two pivotal forces, they, nevertheless, can never rid themselves of the strong grip of these forces. They choose to become femmes fatales in an attempt to liberate themselves from their backgrounds and the cruel surrounding environment in which they are captured. However, they end up not only entrapping and destroying the men around them, but also devastated and crushed themselves.

This study examines the female characters’ individual backgrounds, their ambitions and aspirations, and their states of mind that lead them to decide to use their sexuality in order to fulfill their ambitions. It also examines how these women become dangerous and even deadly both to the men they encounter and to themselves. Through analyzing the writers’ roles in creating this type of women, this book examines the affiliation between the psychological, sociological, and cultural formations within the time frame when the texts were written. These factors are important in the understanding of why the writers needed to create this new type of dangerous, alluring women. I assert that the depiction of women within American naturalism as femmes fatales functions as a part of the writers’ ideological constructions. As the state of mind of each of these women is examined, the dominant cultural ideologies will also be investigated. I argue that the writers discussed in this book present women as femmes fatales as a way of showing why and how these women want to break free from biological determinism and the surrounding environment in which they find themselves entrapped. The depiction of aggressive and even deadly behavior in these women conveys the writers’ critiques of biological determinism and social construction through the narratives. My examination focuses on the rationale for the female protagonists’ hopes to move outside the prison of biological determinism and the surrounding environment.