The Femme Fatale in American Literature By Ghada Sasa

Her need for having dinner banquets, traveling to Europe, wearing expensive clothes, and having flowers on the dinner table each night means more to Mrs. Bart than the well-being of her husband. Driven by wanting more and more money to come into her life, the mother instills in her daughter the values of the materialistic world and teaches her never to be satisfied without money and without the luxuries that come along with money. On the day of his ruin, Mr. Bart walks in on his wife and daughter while the two of them are discussing the importance of having enough lilies on the dinner table. Lily, who “hate[s] to see faded flowers at luncheon,” and Mrs. Bart, who “had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making,” do not realize the fact that Mr. Bart is “ruined” (33). Not only do they not realize this, but they also do not want to sympathize with the husband’s bankruptcy and financial ruin: “To his wife, he no longer counted: he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfill his purpose” (34). The fact that Mrs. Bart has been mainly concerned with her husband because of the income he brings into the family shows how deeply ungrateful his wife is. Little do we know about her husband’s subsequent death, but we learn that the wife still has one solace amid her poverty, and it is the contemplation of her daughter’s beauty: “She studied it with a kind of passion, as though it were some weapon she has slowly fashioned for her vengeance. It was the last asset in their fortune, the nucleus around which their life was to be rebuilt” (35). She “used to say to her [daughter] with a kind of fierce vindictiveness, ‘But you’ll get it all back—you’ll get it all back with your face.’ ” (30).

The novel centers around Lily’s destruction and ends with Lily’s defeat. Lily drifts alone in the world, yet is always dependent on the values her mother has passed on to her: “I am horribly poor—and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money” (29). Her destruction is gradual as she moves downward from one social class to another.