Historicizing the femme fatale: from sensation fiction to film noir

This thesis analyzes the femme fatale as a teacher figure in sensation fiction and film noir. I argue that as an archetype character the femme fatale has many iterations throughout literary and cinematic history who function to disrupt the social fabric. I show how the nineteenth-century fatal governess from sensation fiction helped pave the way for the dangerous teacher figure of film noir. I demonstrate the shared concerns between sensation fiction and film noir, which create space for the deadly teacher figure to break down social boundaries and expose injustices. Her narrative forces society to look in a moral mirror and reconsider socio-historic circumstances. In this way, she plays a figurative or symbolic role as a teacher to society; she shows women that they too can find ways to achieve agency of body, mind, and spirit. This thesis works to broaden the understanding of the working woman femme fatale by identifying and analyzing sensation fiction’s dangerous governess and film noir’s teacher figure.