Ralph Godfrey

Professor Cohl

FIQWIS 10105 HA 9

October 29 2018

 

Flaws of the Femme Fatale

            At one point in time, the social constructs of a patriarchy were not as frowned upon as they are in today’s society. Women during 19^th century Russia were not given the same opportunities of education and political involvement as men were. However, this did not stop a few women from finding alternatives to seeking power and independence of their own. Some women used their beauty and sexual appeal to hypnotize men and cause them to fall in love in order to gain such power. “Their love is a passionate death-struggle in which the active female destroys the passive male” (Ridge 352). These women were depicted in works of literature from multiple time periods through the literary archetype known as the Femme Fatale. Some argue that the Femme Fatale is objectively wicked and is purely just a result of the social restrictions and gender stereotypes. This is suspect and deserves examination, as the Femme Fatale eventually exploits her power over the men she has hypnotized beyond the point of gender equality. During 19^th century Russia, Ivan Turgenev in his story Fist Love portrays the femme fatale as wicked to show how she eventually exploits her power over men by narrating through the first person perspective of a male character that observes her behavior objectively.

            In Turgenev’s First Love, the protagonist Volodija who tells the story of his first love at 16 years old provides a “first person narration on past events, which forces a certain objectivity about the experiences narrated” (Mills 434). Throughout the story, Volodija constantly reflects on his feelings, evaluating and asking himself questions about his own emotions after almost every encounter with the Femme Fatale Zinaida. He indulges “into intensive description, reverting to his contemplative nature.” (Mills 435). After leaving Zinaida’s house where her beloveds/hypnotized men played games revolving around her body and Volodija almost admitted his secret (that he loves her), he states, “Yes, Zinaida amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks, I saw her every day, and what didn’t she do with me!.. In our house she was transformed into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother…” (Turgenev 163-164). This level of awareness Volodija shows over his love for Zinaida is something the other men in this short story do not appear to obtain as Turgenev purposefully only shows the other men when they are around Zinaida, where we can only see the surface their personalities. Questioning how his own relationship will become as a result of being acquainted with Zinaida shows a level of maturity and caution that leads the reader to believe he is neither fully mastered by Zinaida or masters Zinaida. This objectivity assures the reader that the perspective read from is most fair when observing the behavior of the Femme Fatale through a first person encounter.

Since Volodija provides the most objective point of view out of all the men in Zinaida’s life, he encounters examples of the behavior of the two extremes, those who are mastered by and those who have mastered the Femme Fatale archetype. In Zinaida’s house, the reader gets to see how “she is the feminine egoist whose world revolves around her,” (Mills 434) when one of her many hopeless beloveds Lushin shamelessly explains the game to Volodija, “The one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege of kissing her hand” (Turgenev 155), Volodija immediately says to himself, “I stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment” (Turgenev 155), showing he is not as hypnotized as some of the other men, finding this behavior peculiar and continues to part-take in the game with caution and disbelief. Zinaida continues to show how in control she is of her beloveds as she indulges herself in sadism, finding pleasure at the expense of her beloveds. Upon Lushin hand, “she pricked it and he did in fact to begin to laugh,.. she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions” (Turgenev 163). With this scene, it gives a clear example of what being mastered by the Femme Fatale looks like. Scenes like this where one of Zinaida’s many beloveds shows obsessive love over Zinaida puts Volodijo’s symptoms of love into perspective as Volodija only appears to be moderately affected by the allure of the Femme Fatale.

Volodija also observes Zinaida’s behavior with the other extreme, which is someone who can master the Femme Fatale, which happens to be his very own father. This encounter is uncommon for the Femme Fatale because they are known for playing the more dominant role in the relationship, and becoming mastered by another man can be her only observable weakness. Towards the end of the story, Zinaida and Volodija’s father Petr Vasil’ic meet secretly where Zinaida first experiences masochism instead of sadism, deriving pleasure from pain inflicted on her. Volodija “heard a sharp blow to that arm, bare to the elbow… while Zinaida shuddered, looked without a word to my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it.” (Turgenev 195) After Zinaida experiences sadism for the first time “with Petr Vasil’ic, Zinaida learns that self-sacrifice can be as pleasurable as tormenting others” (Mills 437). However, it can’t be that simple. What makes the relationship between Petr Vasil’ic and Zinaida so unique where the social dynamic is completely reversed?

To begin with, Petr Vasil’ic is a completely different character than those Zinaida masters, or even Volodija himself who is the fairest and most objective amongst this spectrum of beloveds for Zinaida. Petr Vasil’ic is a free spirit, who scarcely and cautiously shows his love or commitment to others, even to his own wife, Volodija’s mother. Petr Vasil’ic in one of his very few intimate with Volidja, he advises his son, “Take for yourself what you can, and don’t be ruled by others; to belong to oneself—the whole savour in life is that… Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty. Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.” (Turgenev 160) With this, he not only refers to life itself, but to interactions with women, foreshadowing his fate with Zinaida, as this mind set is what ultimately causes her to be under his command, which is why she only feels masochism with Petr Vasil’ic. In this case, she is seduced by him and has trouble breaking his will. It is not certain as to whether she experiences love symptoms or not, or if she’s even capable of experiencing love symptoms of her own, but it is for certain that the stronger will of a man breaks her will to exploit power in the patriarchal society. However, it is also not fair to say Petr Vasil’ic does not have carnal desires or intimate feelings towards Zinaida, he simply just contains them to gain a psychological advantage over the nature of the Wicked Femme Fatale. This mentality not only has a big affect on Zinaida, but on Volodija too. His father’s secrecy and independence appeals to Volodija, causing him to analyze his father and their relationship, the same way he objectively evaluates his love and relationship for Zinaida.

 

As a result of finding pleasure in the dark and cryptic parts of her intimate relationships, the reader ultimately realizes that the Femme Fatale is more wicked then we expect as we begin to learn that she is also her own enemy. Being her own enemy is what ultimately confuses and draws in the poor men who fall for her seduction, typically superfluous men who are self-conscious, weak and let fate direct them in life without taking matters into their own hands. When Volodija has a moment to talk to Zinaida, she opens up about how complex her own nature is. She says in regards to her love life, “No; I can’t care for people I have to look down upon. I must have someone who can master me… But merciful heavens, I hope I may never come across anyone like that! I don’t want to be caught in any one’s claws, not for anything” (Turgenev 163). This moment of vulnerability the Femme Fatale has with someone who is neither mastering nor mastered by shows how the blame can be put on her for all of the destruction she causes. She is fully conscious of the deceit she commits upon those who attempt to be intimate with her, who end up just becoming her followers. With this fully conscious mind, she maintains these sadistic relationships, all just to avoid true love. Why would someone want to avoid true love? Why does the Femme Fatale value her independence so much, knowing she is hurting people around her and will never have any real connection of her own?

It isn’t until the end of the story where we really see how impactful Zinaida’s presence was on the life of her beloveds. After four years, Volodijo meets with one of her former beloveds/followers Dolsky. Due to the absence of the Zinaida, Dolsky carries on a normal conversation with Volodijo, telling him he has carried on with his life as if nothing happened and how Zinaida finally had a family of her own and eventually died at the birth of her child. Regardless, the roles of the beloved and those who mastered the Femme Fatale have an immediate switch due to her absence, showing just how powerful her wicked nature was on the men in her life. Without her, men like Dolsky carry normal lives and are no longer have obsessively in love personality traits, that is until he runs into another Femme Fatale.

Another Femme Fatale that can be seen exploiting her power is Maria from The Torrents of Spring. To begin with, her husband is “not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever…” (Turgenev 89) meaning she chose a man who was simply weaker, in other words a superfluous man, allowing her to indulge in sadism. The Femme Fatale also shamelessly admits “And I’m of use to her. With me she can do just as she likes! I’m easy going!” (Turgenev 97) In front of Dimitri (the protagonist), she shamelessly displays her dominance over her husband telling him “I see you are sleepy; kiss my hand and get along…” (Turgenev 101) as she then goes and spends time with her new acquaintance Dimitri, who is also a superfluous man, which is a quality she then exploits.

Femme Fatales such as Maria and Zinaida are attracted to men of low dominance and don’t look to take matters into their own hands such as superfluous men. This makes the exploitation process much easier. This implies that Femme Fatales don’t look to focus on exploiting a higher power man, but rather any man. Dominating a superfluous man is not something that will gain any women equality, for it is men such as Petr Vasil’ic with strong that have all the power. Since they are unsuccessful at seducing the stronger willed men, they settle for men that are easier to exploit and feel power on a much smaller scale.

 

 

Thus, Femme Fatales like Zinadia and Maria go far beyond their power after seducing men for their own amusement and pleasure, making them wicked by nature rather then just objectively due to the societal circumstances. By committing sadism and purposefully staying away from those who they can personally fall in love with, taking pleasure in the darker characteristics of being in power over men is a way of feeling empowered in such a misogynist society. Therefore, in order to continue to seek pleasure, they must hurt others in order to maintain their reputation and continue breaking the societal norms in which they live in, making their only enemy to eventually be themselves. However if there were no patriarchy, it would be hard for the Femme Fatale to justify her way of living or even inhibit this kind of nature because they need to exist in an unbalanced society in order to thrive or find purpose of acting such a way. There would be no reason to act as a Femme Fatale in the first place if there was no inequality to begin with. The Femme Fatale ultimately acts out this way for the resentment towards men for not having a fair say in politics or classrooms. Wouldn’t quieting any group of people due to prejudice beliefs make anyone act out in sadistic and vengeful ways? However the answer for equality cannot through crass amusement in another person’s intimate desires, as feminist found equality in other more diplomatic matter through protest and persistence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Bronfen, Elisabeth. “Femme Fatale: Negotiations of Tragic Desire.” New Literary History, vol. 35, no. 1, 2004, pp. 103–116. www.jstor.org/stable/20057823. Web. November 11, 2016

 

Mills, Judith Oloskey. “Theme and Symbol in ‘First Love.’” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 15, no. 4, 1971, pp. 433–440. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/306033.

 

Ridge, George Ross. “The ‘Femme Fatale’ in French Decadence.” The French Review, vol. 34, no. 4, 1961, pp. 352–360. www.jstor.org/stable/383840.

 

Sherwin, Miranda. “Deconstructing the Male: Masochism, Female Spectatorship, and the Femme Fatale in Fatal Attraction, Body of Evidence, and Basic Instinct.” Journal of Popular Film & Television. Vol. 35, Issue 4, 2008, p174-182. CCNY Libraries

https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=66f1cae8-8377-48ed-b072-36c4043d385b%40sessionmgr102

 

Turgenev, Ivan. The Torrents of Spring. Edited by Constance Garnett, Bibliobazaar, 2006. First Love