The Femme Fatale in American Literature By Ghada Sasa

The traditional matter, themes, and forms of earlier American naturalistic fiction continued into the twentieth century and are visible in works such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. This book will include Nella Larsen’s Quicksand as an example of a literary text written in the twentieth century that still carries the seeds and the themes inherent in the naturalistic movement.

Through examining the depiction of the femme fatale’s heredity and environment, the book examines how biological determinism is affecting these women’s characters and how it is leading them to the femme fatale path. This analysis assists in determining why, how, and at what point each woman decides to become a femme fatale. By examining works written by both male and female authors in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, this book demonstrates that this literary movement has both created and needed the femme fatale.

The threatening acts and aggressive attitudes of the women examined in this study are associated with their heredity and environment. Each of the women discussed is struggling in one way or another and is trying desperately to fight back against the suffocating constraints of heredity and environment. In order for these women to fight back, they are choosing to use their sexual appeal. This analysis focuses on the emergence of the femme fatale in American naturalism by analyzing the background, heredity, environment, and experiences of the female character.

The book analyzes how each of these femmes fatales is formed through her refusal to allow the environment and heredity to take control of her life. The question of whether or not these femmes fatales have succeeded in overcoming heredity and environment is a primary focus in this book.