The odds are always against her and when she beats those odds, and finishes the story sipping daiquiris on the beach in Togo rather than breaking rocks in the yard at Sing Sing, it’s a satisfying - and subtly unsettling - outcome.īut the Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. She’s taking on the 1930s “man’s world” like a Samurai taking on an enemy army. But occasionally she doesn’t, and when the Femme Fatale is done right, it’s impossible not to root for her. Usually, in the old hard-boiled pulp stories and noir films, she comes to a bad end - as O’Shaughnessy does, more or less. Assertive, sexy, and utterly free from the soft bondage of conscience, she plays the men around her like pianos, getting whatever she wants and leaving them stranded afterward gasping for air like fresh-caught fish flopping on the dock. ONE OF THE MOST enduring and appealing tropes in popular fiction is the “Femme Fatale,” like Brigid O’Shaughnessy in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. (Part 1 of a 2-part series on Carrie Bradley, 1880s Portland's most sinister and audacious bordello madam. Your browser does not support the audio element. Audio version: Download MP3 or use controls below:
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