1000 Word Argumentative Research Paper (MLA Format)

Keener 1

Danielle Keener1

Dr. A. Peever

HUM 396

7/9/2013

Investigation of the Femme Fatale in Fatal Attraction, Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight, and Gustav Klimt's Judith I

Jules Claretie first used the phrase “femme fatale” in "La Vie a Paris" in 1896.

He said, "a fatal woman [femme fatale] is a woman that causes misfortune" (Harper).

American audiences were confronted by femme fatales in film-noir movies in the

early 20th century. This kind of character is as ancient as the Bible and is still used as

a plot device in contemporary story telling. To be more specific, the femme fatale is

not just any female that might cause harm: she is a threatening figment of the male

ego. According to Barbara Hayes, due to an inability to create a unified identify after

World War I, men created the femme fatale characters in film-noir in order to make

sense of and "transfer" their damaged psyches (227). She is alluring, deceiving,

harmful, volatile, enigmatic, and independent. Femme fatales kill, lie, and essentially

anger and scare men. Through patriarchal perspectives, she can also convince females

of their selfish malevolence (Sherwin 174). Yet there are different types of femme

fatales. Some act on revenge, some are power hungry, some are inexplicably crazy,

some are just evil for evil's sake, and others might describe even some as heroes.

Most of these kinds of characters depict "paranoid fantasies about the threat" to

manhood "as posed by weakened manhood and female sexuality" (Babener 25). An

1 Student Danielle Keener gave DrP written permission to use this paper as a sample. It remains Danielle’s intellectual property. DrP

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investigation of the different nuances of this archetype can be observed in three

distinctive femme fatales including Alex Forrest in the film Fatal Attraction, Lady

Bertilak in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and in Gustav Klimt's painting Judith

I. Each of these women emulate the femme fatale in the way that "[she] entertains a

narcissistic pleasure at the deployment of her own ability to dupe the men who fall for

her, even as she is merciless in manipulating them for her own ends" (Bronfen).

Alex Forrest nearly destroys the Gallagher family in the 1987 film Fatal

Attraction. Alex Forrest is the career woman that the Gallagher family patriarch, Dan,

has an affair with. Almost automatically she is cast in the position of the home

wrecker in a film that has firmly established its glorification of the family. She entices

the patriarch with flirtatious smiles and promises of prudence with a sultry tone. Dan

thinks he has a free shot at guiltless, great sex, but instead his decisions catapult him

into an alarming assault on his emotional health and family. When Dan tries to leave

Alex she becomes hysterical and suicidal. The femme fatale demands respect and

demands control. After several attempts at trying to be with Dan, Alex continues her

depression and starts to behave more irrationally, threateningly, and violently. She

tells Dan that she is pregnant and that she will keep the baby, and she demands his

responsibility for the child. He denies her further until she starts becoming harmful to

his family. The film ends with Alex becoming insane and being killed by Dan's wife

after a terrifying fight among the three.

Alex's character is a vivid encapsulation of the essence of every femme fatale.

She is sexy. She is strong. She is a murderous, masochistic, stalking psychopath. She

comes off as completely insane by the end of the movie. Until then she is

characterized by a borderline personality, which according to Scott Snyder is the

epitome of the femme fatale personality. The patriarchal frame of this movie holds

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Alex to be at a total fault and yet she is a victim of Dan's irresponsible and vague

behaviour (Babener 29, 30). However, Alex remains a femme fatale in her ability to

convince Dan that she is sexually independent and desirable, and she threatens to

endanger everything that he esteems and loves: his family, his manhood, his life.

Lady Bertilak is the lady of Hautdesert and wife of Sir Bertilak (also

characterized as the Green Knight) in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight. A very early example of a femme fatale in the last millennium, Lady Bertilak

is known to be more beautiful than Lady Guinevere. She and her maid are asked to

keep Sir Gawain entertained and engaged while her husband is on a hunting trip. Each

day of the hunting she comes into the quarters of Sir Gawain alone, intruding on his

privacy and imposing herself on him literally and figuratively. Lady Bertilak teases

and chides Gawain about his chivalry and chastity several times (she challenges his

manhood and knighthood). She tells him what an impressive knight he is and offers

her body and to be his servant (she attempts seduction). Sir Gawain, the faultless

knight, denies her sexually but allows her a kiss because it is his knightly duty to be

courteous to ladies. Over the course of the days of the hunting trip she spends time

with Gawain and shows that she is a lovely lady and an excellent conversationalist. In

true femme fatale form, she holds her own in the presence of a powerful man. She is

so good at banter, humor, and praise that she gets kisses out of him every day. Sir

Gawain, however, maintains his ability to be knightly and never succumbs to her

sexually while remaining honest in the giving game with her husband (Weston). On

his last day Lady Bertilak offers Gawain a red and gold ring, which he cannot accept

because of its material value, and a green and gold silk girdle, which he accepts for its

"avowed ability to save his life" and lack of material value (Cooke 7). Gawain keeps

the girdle from Sir Bertilak and goes off on his quest to the Green Chapel. After his

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encounter with the Green Knight we learn that Morgan le Fay, who was most likely

disguised as Lady Bertilak's elderly handmaid, was possibly behind the entire quest

trying to prove Gawain an unfit knight. Morgan le Fay, in this sense, may be the

second femme fatale Sir Gawain encounters and fail to affect his virtues. After the

truth about the game comes out, Gawain engages in a long rant about the

deceitfulness of women. In his rage he reaffirms that women like the temptress Lady

Gawain cannot be trusted, especially after being clued into the fact that she was an

instrument in Morgan's manipulative scheme (Valdés Miyares 186).

Gustav Klimt's painting Judith I (see Appendix) depicts the Biblical character

of Judith holding the decapitated head of Holofernes, an Assyrian General. The

allegory states that Judith was a widow virgin who saved her town from Assyrian

conquest by befriending Holofernes, a high-ranking general, and beheading him while

she was in his tent late after a banquet. She is then praised by her countrymen and

remembered as a saviour of God's people (USCCB. Bible. Judith. 13.1-20). But in

Klimt's painting we have none of this information. What we are confronted with in

this painting is a beautiful woman wearing a sheer garment that exposes her torso all

the way down to her hips with a smug, seductive, pleasured expression, holding the

head of a bearded man. It is even hard to tell that the man is decapitated because half

of his face isn't even the painting; Judith surrounded by gold leaf takes up most of the

painting. To an unsuspecting viewer, this woman could be caressing the head of a

sleepy lover. The model, Adele Bloch Bauer, is painted with raised eyebrows, raised

chin, and surrounded by gold. Her mouth is enticingly left open exposing her teeth.

Her eyelids are ever so slightly open in a calm collectiveness. She wears a wide

golden choker and gold armbands that suggest she was accessorized in a way to

impress Holofernes. All these characteristics pose her superiority and evoke a feeling

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of terror in the presence of this woman holding a dead man's head. The positioning of

Holofernes' head in the lower right corner of the painting further expresses her

importance, her triumph, and her powerfully seductive nature. She exposed herself

and seduced a formidable man in order to murder him and completely cause his army

to retreat. This gave her great power and praise among her people. Depicted as a

Biblical hero in history, Judith contradicts part of the femme fatale archetype fate of

punishment and doom. Gustav Klimt's Judith I is especially a femme fatale with her

domineering seductiveness. It is as though she is confronting her audience and

interacting with the viewer to prove that she is a force of beauty and vengeance that

cannot be stopped.

Femme fatales have both frightened and humbled every type of audience for

as long as stories have been told. They are the epitome of the female villain. They

exude qualities that have terrified, threatened, and seduced men even to the point of

death. Femme fatales are convincing and conniving which can either lead them to

victory or to a dreadful and doomed fate. History is written by the victors and that is

why Judith in Gustav Klimt's painting is unexpectedly unnerving yet sensual, and

why Fatal Attraction audience members were delighted in seeing Alex Forrest’s

death, and why Sir Gawain's temptress is only mildly intimidating. The qualities

these women possess characterize the femme fatale. They are seductive, strong, and,

most importantly, drive men to fear for their lives and reputations.

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Works Cited

Atzmon, Leslie. "Arthur Rackham's Phrenological Landscape: In-Betweens, Goblins,

And Femmes Fatales." Design Issues 18.4 (2002): 64-83. MLA

International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

Babener, Liahna. "Patriarchal Politics In Fatal Attraction." Journal Of Popular

Culture 26.3 (1992): 25-34. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July

2013.

Bible. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Judith, Chapter 13.” Judith

Beheads Holofernes. Web. 6 July 2013.

Cooke, Jessica. "The Lady's 'Blushing' Ring In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight."

Review of English Studies: A Quarterly Journal of English Literature and

The English Language 49.193 (1998): 1-8. MLA International

Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

Green. “Klimt’s Women.” Artchooser. 21 February 2011. Web. 6 July 2013.

Hales, Barbara. "Dark Mirror: Constructions Of The Femme Fatale In Weimar Film

And Hollywood Film Noir." Dissertation Abstracts International 57.3

(1996): 1157A. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

---.. "Projecting Trauma: The Femme Fatale In Weimar And Hollywood Film Noir."

Women In German Yearbook: Feminist Studies In German Literature And

Culture 23.(2007): 224-243. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July

2013.

Harper, Douglas. “Femme Fatale.” Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001-2013. Web. 6

July 2013.

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Klimt, Gustav. Judith I. 1901. Oil. Jubilee Exhbition. Österreichische Galerie

Belvedere, Austria.

Morgan, Gerald. "Medieval Misogyny and Gawain's Outburst against Women in Sir

Gawain and The Green Knight." Modern Language Review 97.2 (2002):

265-278. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

---. "The Action Of The Hunting And Bedroom Scenes In Sir Gawain And The Green

Knight." Medium Aevum 56.2 (1987): 200-216. MLA International

Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

Snyder, Scott. “Personality Disorder and the Film Noir Femme Fatale.” Journal of

Criminal Justice and Popular Culture (155-168). 2001. Web. 6 July 2013.

Valdés Miyares, Rubén. "Sir Gawain And The Great Goddess." English Studies: A

Journal of English Language and Literature 83.3 (2002): 185-206. MLA

International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2013.

Weston, Jessie. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." River Campus Libraries. The

Camelot Project at the University of Rochester, May 1900. Web. 6 July

2013.

Wikipedia contributors. "Judith and the Head of Holofernes." Wikipedia, The Free

Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Mar. 2013. Web. 6

Jul. 2013.

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Appendix

Gustav Klimt: Judith I. 1901.