Top Ten Tuesday: Great Femme Fatales

Posted April 22, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top Ten Tuesday / 8 Comments

toptentuesdayIt’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Great femme fatales. I love a good femme fatale, they are mysterious, seductive and often deadly.

  • Brigid O’Shaughnessy – The Maltese Falcon by Dashell Hammett (without spoiling the story, Brigid is the ultimate femme fatale)
  • Phyllis Nirdlinger – Double Indemnity by James M. Cain (like Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Phyllis embodies the perfect archetype of a femme fatale)
  • Cleopatra – Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (Cleopatra is possibly one of the original femme fatales)
  • Dolores – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (while we may not want a 12 year old femme fatale. You can’t deny she doesn’t embody the characteristics of a femme fatale)
  • Vivian Sternwood – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (I can’t over look Chandler and Vivian is his best example of a femme fatale)

  • Daisy Buchanan – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (no explanation needed)
  • Rebecca – Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (just because she’s dead doesn’t stop Rebecca from being a great femme fatale)
  • Joan Medford – The Cocktail Waitress by James M. Cain (Cain is the king of the femme fatale and I struggled to only name one of his characters in this list)
  • Laurel Gray – In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes (sassy, strong minded with a little mystery to her)
  • Veronica Mars – The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham (if you’ve seen the TV show you’ll know how great Veronica Mars is; part hard-boiled detective part femme fatale)

8 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday: Great Femme Fatales

  1. Mary MK

    I will deny that a 12 year old is a femme fatale. She’s a victim of abuse, and to claim she’s a Femme Fatale somehow makes that ok. However the narrator might try to portray her to justify his actions, does not make her a femme fatale.

    • We know that the narrator is unreliable and that she is a victim of abuse but she still follows the femme fatale archetype. Her actions, through the eyes of Humbert come a cross as seductive and manipulative, we don’t know what she is really like but in Lolita she is a femme fatale.

  2. Chrissi Reads

    I completely agree with you about Rebecca. She may be dead, but she’s definitely a femme fatale.

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