This essay analyses how the portrayal of femmes fatales has changed in the
hands of three American innovators of the hard-boiled genre: Dashiell Hammett
(1894-1961), Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), and Ross Macdonald (1915-1983).
Femmes fatales play a pivotal role in the course of the hard-boiled detective’s quest,
and often prove worthy opponents of the detective. Typically, their enticing beauty
and potent sexuality lure the detective into danger, and their intelligence is used to
manipulate men, and sometimes women as well. As the nature of a detective's
employment has evolved to bring him into contact with different social groups, the
typology of femmes fatales has also changed. In later hard-boiled fiction, the
detective is no longer found only on the mean streets of urban settings. He enters the
realm of the wealthy and middle-class suburbs, and meets women of various ages and
social backgrounds. Macdonald’s femmes fatales, usually depicted with strong
Oedipal overtones, are often the victims of circumstance. This essay examines: (1)
how Hammett established the archetypal femmes fatales in two characters, Brigid
O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1929) and Dinah Brand in Red Harvest (1927);
(2) how Chandler expanded the typology and introduced psychological interest in the
depiction of the femmes fatales through the creation of Eileen Wade in The Long
Goodbye (1953) and Elizabeth Murdock in The High Window (1942); and, (3) how
Macdonald rewrites these character traits, explores the motivation of each character’s
crime and investigates the ambivalent treatment women receive in society.
Macdonald’s women, such as Mildred Hallman in The Doomsters (1958) and Sarah
Johnson in The Blue Hammer (1976), kill for complicated reasons involving love, fear,
greed and vanity, and often because of their unfair treatment.