Femme Fatale Analysis

Brigid O’Shaughnessy has all the qualities that make someone a femme fatale. She is deceitful, ruthless, and uses her beauty to be promiscuous and seductive. Brigid is a beautiful young woman who is tall and slender, has long legs, piercing blue eyes, and a radiant smile. Her double-dealing ways and evading the truth make her identity of a femme fatale purely a caricature.
Throughout the story Brigid is deceitful in order to get what she wants. When Brigid first walks into Spade’s office, she tells Spade an elaborate story of how her sister went missing. She tells Spade she saw Floyd Thursby, who she claims is responsible for her sister’s disappearance, at the post office, but that he wouldn’t give up any information on where her sister was.
In the beginning, Brigid kills Miles Archer shortly after meeting with him and Spade. This is just the first look into Brigid’s malevolent actions to gain power. In addition, when she travels to Hong Kong with Cairo, it appears that she is there to help him find the falcon. However, when she gets her hands on the falcon, she leaves Cairo in the dust and takes off with it. She is in it for herself, but uses Cairo to get her to where she wants to be. Then, when she gets to her intended target: the falcon, she leaves Cairo there with nothing. Chapter 20 is when the truth comes out and Spade discovers that Brigid killed Archer. It takes a lot of prying and questioning from Spade, but Brigid finally cracks and tells him the truth. Even still, she tries to get Spade to protect her and cover up the murder for her. Brigid begs Spade to not turn her in and for him to take the fall for it. He tells her that if he gets caught for hiding the murder he could be hung. Brigid’s response is basically “okay; if that’s what happens, that’s what happens.” Spade stands up to Brigid and tells her “[he] won’t play the sap for [her]” and make a mockery of himself (215). With that, Brigid is arrested and rightfully charged with the murder of