The Metamorphoses of the Femme Fatale in H. Rider Haggard’s She and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Abstract

his article explores the metamorphosis of the femme fatale in British literature from its Victorian model to its neo-Victorian counterpart. It contributes to the field of research on the femme fatale as an archetypal figure and a cultural icon in the contemporary literary scene. It also demonstrates how the figure of the femme fatale is employed as an instrument of subversion in dealing with issues of female emancipation, the threat to traditional gender roles, as well as the fear and anxiety of the encounter with the lethal woman in literature. Relying on Edward Said's Orientalism, the article shows how, in H. Rider Haggard’s Victorian novel She, the femme fatale, personified in his heroine She-Who-must-be-obeyed, perpetuates stereotypical representation of the Other through her subversive sexuality. Yet, in John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, this article shows how the new femme fatale, embodied in his heroine Sarah Woodruff, is different from her predecessor She. Such difference is illustrated through the various postmodern paradigms that Fowles playfully inserts into his new rewriting of the femme fatale. The study relies on Julie Sander’s theory of cultural appropriation to trace Fowles' re-presentation of the postmodern femme fatale. Keywords: Neo-Victorian; Orientalism; appropriation; femme fatale; H. Rider Haggard; John Fowles.