Kapiolani
Community College Horizons 2003
Kapiolani
Community College
Horizons 2003
Throughout history many stories, factual and fictional, have
been told of the femme fatale—the woman who manipulates man to achieve her own ends. Two
that immediately come to mind are “Samson and Delilah,” and the “Black
Widow.” In the Biblical tale of “Samson and Delilah,” Samson
falls in love with Delilah. After much nagging by Delilah, Samson reveals that
the secret to his extraordinary strength is in his hair. When he falls asleep
on her lap, Delilah has Samson’s head shaved. Reduced to the strength of
an ordinary man, Samson is captured, tortured; and he eventually kills himself
(Ecker). Although he was a man of great physical strength, we see that when it
came to affairs of the heart, Samson was weak. There are also many stories of
the “Black Widow.” She is the woman who marries and kills off her
husbands for their money. Or she is the married woman who takes on a lover
and convinces him to kill her husband... again, for money. Whatever the story
line,
it always revolves around a woman who uses sex to lure a man (or men) into
her web of lies, deceit and lust for money, status and power. And as with the
spider,
the male mate is killed in the end.
In Chinese literature, there are many tales of the femme fatale. She does not
adhere to the Confucian philosophy of proper moral behavior nor to the relationships
between superior and inferior, in which wives, the inferior, must obey their
husbands, the superior (“Reacting”). She is the contradiction of
a Chinese woman as symbolized in the “Yin” of the “Yin and
Yang” where “Yin” is passive and weak, while “Yang,” which
symbolizes man, is active and strong (Perkins 604). She is not the woman who
follows the “Code for Women” written by Ban Zhao (AD 49-120) which
instructs women to “obey their father as children, their husband as wives,
and their sons after their husbands die” (Perkins 96). Our archetype on
the contrary, is the seductress, the vixen, the woman who “rules the
nest.”
Like many women in Chinese literature who have the beauty of a delicate flower,
our femme fatale also has great beauty. In the story of “Empress Chao Fei-Yen,” “her
gait was so light that her graceful carriage, which was beyond imitation, was
compared to the single stem of flower dangling in the grasp of a human hand” (307).
But a delicate blossom she is not. She is scheming and lascivious, sleeping with
many men in an attempt to have a baby she can pass off as the Emperor’s
child to secure her position in the palace. She is jealous, resenting her sister
who has won the Emperor’s favor. She is deceitful, lying to the Emperor
of her pregnancy. She is threatening, bribing the Eunuch Wang to find her a
baby to pass off as her own to cover up her false pregnancy.
Empress Chao is not the only scheming one in this story. Her sister, Chao-Yi,
proves to be a formidable opponent. More beautiful than her sister, Chao-Yi
is also more ruthless and heartless. Suspecting her sister’s trickery, Chao-Yi
also becomes suspicious of other women having the Emperor’s baby, and
orders the baby of an attendant, as well as all pregnant maids, killed. In
her madness,
she kills the Emperor and then commits suicide. In this story, both femme fatales
fell victim to their own evildoing.
Similarly, there is the femme fatale that men lust after, only to destroy themselves
and their families. “Han Wu-Niang Sells Her Charms at the New Bridge Market” by
Ku-Chin Hsiao-Shuo is a good example. In this story our archetype is a prostitute,
Wu-Niang (also called Chin-nu,) who seduces Wu-Shan. Although described as “clever,
handsome, civil in his manner and practical-minded, with no mind for frivolity,” Wu-Shan
behaves quite the opposite after setting his eyes upon Chin-nu (314). He is so
blinded and unable to see who she really is that he is being tricked into giving
her money. To be with her, he lies to his parents and cheats on his wife. He
is knocking on death’s door, nearly destroyed by sexual exhaustion. However,
although coming close to it, this femme fatale does not completely destroy
this man. Wu-Shan survives in the end, but only because of the love and devotion
of
his parents and surprisingly enough, his wife.
There is also the femme fatale with devotion, but not of true spirit, which
eventually leads to her own demise. She is Hsuan-Chi of “The Poetess Yu Hsuan-Chi” by
San-Shui Hsiao-Tu. At the start of this story, Hsuan-Chi appears devout since
she has dedicated herself to the Taoist teachings. However, she was previously
a courtesan. Although now a nun, she still indulges in thoughts of sexual pleasures.
Hsuan-Chi’s life is one big contradiction. Instead of trust, she displays
jealousy and suspects her servant, Lu Ch’iao, of carrying on with an old
patron of hers. Instead of truth, she falsely accuses Lu Ch’iao. Instead
of compassion, she beats Lu Ch’iao to death and then lies and tries to
cover it up. But when the truth is revealed, Hsuan-Chi is executed. Hsuan-Chi
may have tried to change her path to one of righteousness, but could not accomplish
this because she did not possess a pure heart.
Finally, there is the femme fatale who, motivated by greed and money, steers
her man in the wrong direction. In the story of “The Henpecked Judge Who
Loses a Governorship” by Tsui-Hsing Shih, we see at first two very honorable,
hard working people — Wei and his wife. While all of Wei’s focus
is on studying for the government exams, his wife works hard to support their
family. But as we soon learn, she does not do this selflessly. Wei’s wife
has ulterior motives — money, status, and power. After Wei passes the exams
and becomes a judge, his wife’s true colors are revealed. She demands
gifts of jewelry and fine clothes, and later accepts money as a bribe from
a local
criminal in exchange for her influencing her husband to rule in his favor.
Although a good and honorable judge, Wei is unfortunately controlled by his
wife. He does
as she wishes which eventually costs him the governorship. In her greed, she
ends up losing more than she already had, and Wei loses his self-respect and
dignity.
We have read about many types of women in Chinese literature: the beautiful maiden
over whom kingdoms are fought and lost; the supernatural maiden who falls in
love with a mortal man; the woman who has died, but her spirit continues to live
on in the heart and mind of the man that loves her. And then there is the femme
fatale. Although she may possess some of the fine qualities of our other archetypes,
there is one main difference: Her story never has a happy ending. Everyone who
crosses her path, including herself, gets hurt. Throughout history there have
been many stories of the femme fatale, for she is a woman who is complicated
and cunning, and she intrigues us.
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