Facing the Femme Fatale: The Poetics of Seduction and the Fascination with Storytelling

Abstract

Fascination is seductive. It captures and occupies the senses and directs the attention of readers or viewers to people or objects, which absorb their full responsiveness in a liminal state of desire and dread. As previously suggested, fascination, at least until the twentieth century, is also highly gendered. As a result, narratives of fascination often revolve around an archetype of dangerous female seduction, which also comprises the figure of Medusa: the femme fatale. Representations of the femme fatale are often used as pervasive and powerful images to create narratives of seduction, that is, narratives which are deeply invested in preserving the elicited yet essentially unfulfilled desire of beholding, conquering or overpowering the fatal woman, which is played out in favour of the (poetic) artefact.