The Dark Lady: Temple Drake as Femme Fatale
1999; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)American Sports and Literature
ResumoThe majority of criticism dealing with William Faulkner's 1931 novel Sanctuary is centered upon complex and difficult character of Temple Drake. She has been focus of a continuing debate: Does Temple have an affinity with as maintained by earlier critics like Brooks and Vickery? Or is she more a character to be with pity for what she suffers, as asserted by Diane Luce Cox; a character to be read as reads story of Darl Bundren or Joe Christmas? (302). The very nature of arguments over Temple's character and her motivations reveals how perplexing Temple and her seemingly contradictory actions are to readers. One method of understanding her, however, may be to consider her within context of form of novel that presents her; evaluation of Temple's place within detective genre will provide key to deciphering hidden codes of her character. In same way that Horace Benbow is in some ways a failed version of detective in paradigm of hard-boiled crime novel, Temple in many ways follows pattern of femme fatale. By recognizing similarities between Temple and formulaic female character of roman noir, we gain an enlightened access to her actions and motivations.(1) Most discussions of femme fatale character take place in forums dedicated to commentary on film rather than roman noir. Almost always, however, criticism and analysis deals with text of a given film rather than cinematographic style or techniques of film. Any such discussion of film is therefore correspondingly a discussion of roman noir, or noir books themselves. Most of great film movies--The Maltese Falcon, Murder, My Sweet, Mildred Pierce, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Laura, The Glass Key (and its updated remake, Miller's Crossing)--are based on novels and stories. And, while there are discussions of femme fatales in works of various writers--an article on the Dark Lady in Dashiell Hammett stories, or perceived misogyny in Raymond Chandler--articles that deal with character as she appears across genre are few. John G. Cawelti is one of critics of popular genres who does comment on femme fatale character in detective fiction. After discussing endemic and pervasive encroachment of into middle-class society, he states that evil seems particularly embodied in one of central phenomena of bourgeois revolution, (156). Temple is, in many ways, representative of new of South of 1920s. She is headstrong, independent, flirtatious, and chomping at bit of heavy-handed male domination; as such, she is marked as a victim for most heavy-handed and brutal kind of male domination. Furthermore, once Temple arrives at some form of agency --the very definition of new woman, perhaps--she is branded as evil. Cawelti goes on to say that second aspect that stands out from comparison of gothic and hard-boiled stories is transformation of woman from victim to villain. While there are female villains in gothic novel and male murderers in hard-boiled story, contrary is more usually case. There can be no question that figure whose honor is at stake in hard-boiled story is not some palpitating female but detective himself, and character who threatens that honor by distracting detective's attention from quest for justice, even when she does not turn out to be murderess, is woman. (156) Although weight of readerly and critical sympathy has certainly fallen to Horace's side over years, Temple is surely just as damned and shattered as he is, if not more so. There is some speculation in literature as to origin and genesis of femme fatale. Jon Tuska feels that she is a result of women's workforce during World War II, and anxiety on part of returning soldiers at learning that women had been performing many of their jobs at least as well as they (203). …
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