The Femme False In Hammett's The Maltese Falcon

The femme fatale can be described as an irresistibly attractive woman, often the love interest of the protagonist, who uses her sexuality as means to acquire what she wants and fulfil her own desires. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia appears to be a prototype for this femme fatale figure which has become a feature in almost all texts of the Noir fiction world. The traits of the femme fatale are evident largely in the physical appearance of the women, the way they act and their function as a plot device. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon provides an excellent example of the role of the femme fatale in noir detective fiction.

The socio-historic context of both texts offers certain parallels in how
Adler had "the face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men," and as said by Holmes, "she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for." Doyle has clearly constructed a character of beauty and intelligence which would appear to be a suitable prototype of the noir fiction’s femme fatale who uses these attributes as a means to get what they desire. In The Maltese Falcon, Brigid O’Shaunessy is described as “tall and pliantly slender, without any angularity anywhere. Her was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow…white teeth glistened,” Hammett creates this character of which is clearly beautiful and desirable by any man thus the clearly perfect character for a femme fatale who would be able to use her sexuality to manipulate men. Acting as an innocent damsel in distress she is able to deceive Sam Spade to an extent as he is incapable of looking past her beauty or her generous offers of ridiculous amounts of
In The Maltese Falcon, the treacherous Miss O’Shaunessy meets the protagonist, Sam Spade who she convinces into helping her find the falcon. This femme fatale tries to trick and manipulate the protagonist into attaining this prized falcon filled with jewels and succeeds getting him to find the falcon, only for it to be a fake. Similarly in A Scandal in Bohemia, Irene Adler had gotten close to the King of which she had gathered a photograph of them together, along with his private note paper and royal seal. For with these, this prototype of the cunning femme fatale had the capability to blackmail the king. Through this, she is able to force the king to submit payments of some sort to stop her from sending the photograph. The femme fatales of Noir Fiction evidently appear to be cunning and deceiving individuals of which is clearly developing in the early portrayal of Irene Adler in Doyle’s