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Hannah Donaldson

Dr. Grieneisen

LIT 2310

5 March 2021

Femme Fatales in Gothic and Horror Literature

The Gothic and Horror Literature of the 18th and 19th centuries throughout Italy created a

lasting impact on the horror genre and how the world perceives it. The variety of literary

elements used in tandem to craft this specific genre of writing is very tailored to the time period

and the setting in Italy. One element specifically stood out amongst the others and aided the

delivery of many stories, this being the use of emotions and romance. This combination of two

elements in one is featured in A Mystery of the Campagna by Anne Crawford, “The Marble

Statue” by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel

Hawthorne. Throughout these three texts, the authors all twist the ideas of romance, and the

emotions that come with it, to portray the women as a seducer who alter the men’s perception of

reality. These vague ideas that a woman can have such power over a man paved the way for the

widely known and used concept of the femme fatale. This paper will analyze the roots of the

femme fatale that blossomed from literary pieces of Gothic and Horror Literature such as the

three aforementioned texts because of the use of otherworldly and supernatural roles for the

women, the naivete of the men, and the impact of their relationship on the story.

To begin, the women of these specific texts in Gothic and Horror Literature are written

with ethereal characteristics that lure men into a seemingly feigned relationship. While the

appearance of supernatural figures in Gothic and Horror Literature is almost a staple element to

the writing, the three women of the texts were all of otherworldly nature or symbolized
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something bigger than themselves. In Crawford’s A Mystery of the Campagna she quite literally

makes the main female in the story out to be a vampire named Vespertilia. Throughout the story

it is uncovered that Marcello, one of the main males, has fallen in love with someone and has

isolated himself away from his normal life. Marcello’s well-being seems to rapidly decline, and

he starts to not seem like himself to his friends, especially Detaille. The reader is unaware of

Vespertilia’s identity and what she is until the last few pages of the story, but after learning that

she is a vampire the strange actions of Marcello suddenly become clearer. In the limited scenes

that Vespertilia is present, she is described in a beautiful manner, “with faintly rosy face, soft

crimson lips, and a breast of living pearl” (Crawford 18). One of the focal points of the femme

fatale archetype is that the woman is beautiful beyond description, as her beauty is what helps

her lure naïve men into her typically devious plans. Since Vespertilia is portrayed as quite a

beautiful woman, it makes sense that she must have used that to her advantage to gain the trust

and love of Marcello. Once she has Marcello wrapped around her finger, she preys on him in

order to stay alive in her vampire state which is most likely why Marcello’s liveliness and health

declined throughout the story. Similarly, Eichendorff’s “The Marble Statue” features a main

woman who is described as gaining lots of male attention. The unnamed woman mainly resides

in an old temple of the Roman goddess, Venus, and there are many instances throughout the

story that lead the reader to believe that the woman is Venus in human form. When Florio visits

the woman in the temple of Venus, she is the center of attention due to her beauty and overall

aura. She attracts Florio in with her outer beauty and lovely singing, making him believe he has

fallen in love with her. Realistically, Florio just seems to be under a seduction by the woman

which causes him to abandon the relationship he was previously pursuing with Bianca. Beneath

all her charm, “she schemes, plots, lies, and deceives in order to make sure she achieves the
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agency she desires” (Tryforos 4). When in the temple with the woman, a storm quickly develops

over the city and Florio starts seeing things, seemingly a haunting of sorts. He escapes before

anything drastic occurs, but if he hadn’t left when he did the woman might have preyed upon

him and made him her next victim. Differently, in Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” the

supernatural being was Beatrice, who seemed to pay homage to Mother Nature. Beatrice had

many characteristics similar to those of a femme fatale, as she was beautiful and attracted men

whenever they saw her. However, Beatrice didn’t intentionally try to harm or mean bad faith to

the men who try to become smitten with her, but the consequences of her poisonous breath made

her seem like a more sinister character. While femme fatales seemingly pretend to be in love

with their targeted man, Beatrice actually fell in love with Giovanni. The buildup and design of

Beatrice’s character in this story could have fit very well into the femme fatale archetype, but

instead Beatrice doesn’t act with selfish desires to destroy the man of the story.

In respect to the male characters of the Gothic and Horror literary pieces, all of the men

featured acted in naïve and lust-driven manners. These men were blindly led into relationships

with the basic agreeance that their women were beautiful and desired. Marcello, Florio, and

Giovanni all fell in love with women who were ethereal in their own ways, whether it be

supernatural tendencies or spiritual symbolism. However, these men were so disconnected from

real life in their relationships that they didn’t notice how their well-being and enjoyment of life

had significantly declined. Specifically, Florio in Eichendorff’s “The Marble Statue” was in the

beginning stages of a new and healthy relationship with Bianca, but when he heard the woman

singing in Donati’s garden Florio quickly started lusting after her. While traveling back to the inn

after hearing the woman singing, Florio finds himself near the temple of Venus. He notices her

marble statue, initially claiming that it was one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen, but
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later describing it as “the statue of Venus, so dreadfully white and motionless, was giving him an

almost terrifying stare with its stone orbits from the boundless silence” (Eichendorff 15). This

observation by Florio could be considered foreshadowing for what is to come with his

relationship with the unnamed woman. Florio is extremely attached to the idea of being with this

woman even though he hasn’t spoken to her very much, but when he meets with her at the

temple of Venus strange things start to happen and he decides that this woman is not who he

thought she was. An interesting difference in this story than the other two is that Florio was first

attracted to the woman due to her singing, this is a noticeable theme in other Gothic and Horror

Literature. In “The Italian” and “The Monk” before the men “really see the women, they both

hear their voices which seem to be an important factor of beauty” (Women in Gothic). The

serene voices of these women are reminiscent of Sirens, which also can arguably be considered a

femme fatale. The fact that the women characters in all these texts have a wide scale of deceit,

manipulation, supernatural tendencies, and master plans, yet they can still be placed into the

archetype of the femme fatale is impressive. In Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, the

development of the couple’s relationship was more successful than the other texts due to the

sincerity of the emotions, but the story still ended with a tragedy as most Gothic and Horror

literary pieces do. Eichendorff did not write a tragic ending for his characters, however, and

allowed Florio to escape from his imminent doom with the woman who resembled Venus.

Crawford’s A Mystery of the Campagna featured the most similar male and female characters to

the circumstances of a femme fatale. Marcello seemed to be a lonely man trying to create his art

to stay afloat, meaning he was in a fragile point in his life. Vespertilia took this moment of

weakness to strike and offered the stability and security of a relationship to appease his sorrows.

She then used this upper hand for her own benefit and slowly feed off of Marcello in order to
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survive in her vampire form. The process of seducing a man while he is in his most vulnerable

state, then using the trust and leverage from that to fulfill your own desires is extremely

synonymous with the femme fatale archetype.

The appearance of the femme fatale roles in the three stories helps guide the plot towards

a better ending regarding Gothic and Horror Literature. The stories would not feel complete or

part of their genre if the relationships were structured differently without the manipulation of the

woman for personal gain. In the 18th and 19th centuries there weren’t many categories for female

characters to branch from, “It is typical that women in early Gothic Fiction are either portrayed

as femmes [sic] fatales or damsels in distress” (Women in Gothic). Though both damsels in

distress and femme fatales are the most prominent portrayals of women in Gothic Literature, the

latter helps the stories have more malicious intent which brings in more horror genre aspects.

Crawford and Hawthorne each finished their stories with a not so happy ending, resulting in

character death of one or both parties of the relationship. The nature and circumstance of all the

deaths push the story so much further into the Gothic and Horror genre because of the heartbreak

and tragedy that even the reader can feel. Specifically, the more sinister female characters “often

exhibit ambiguous relationships to men, and their transformations into the monstrous prove fatal

to these relationships” (Stuart 3). The sting of betrayal by the woman can be felt that much more

when the relationship isn’t defined by both sides, leaving an enigmatic vibe to the entire

circumstance the couple has found themselves in. In the case of Eichendorff’s story between

Florio and the unnamed woman, the relationship ended before it could begin which turned out to

be a real lifesaver for Florio. When authors combine “something as pure as romance [with] the

setting of the Gothic novel or movie, we are left with a disturbing tale in which we sympathize

strongly with the leads’ quest for love” (Frisk). This is seen in Eichendorff’s story the most, as
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the main couple overcomes the manipulative grasp of the unnamed woman, or the spirit of

Venus, on their relationship. The readers are left rooting for Florio and Bianca’s relationship to

persevere through all the trouble and falsifications they both endured. Whereas the men in

Hawthorne and Crawford’s stories both encounter and entangle themselves in relationships with

unworldly women that end in character demise.

All in all, the idea of the femme fatale archetype is heavily used throughout multiple

Gothic and Horror Literature pieces, including A Mystery of the Campagna by Anne Crawford,

“The Marble Statue” by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by

Nathaniel Hawthorne. With the aid of supernatural women and manipulated men, and their

impact on the storyline, the femme fatale makes a prominent impact on the characterization in

Gothic and Horror Literature. This development in literature from the 18th and 19th centuries

including women to hold more power than ever before over a man is a breakthrough for what

types of roles women are capable of portraying in literature (Lin). The femme fatale guides the

stories into the direction of haunting, manipulating, and tragedy that fits perfectly within the

realm of Gothic and Horror Literature. Before making an assumption of the sinister female in a

piece of literature, consider if she is written to be a female fatale as her purpose is to further the

story into a dreadful and emotional resolution.

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Works Cited

Crawford, Anne. “A Mystery of the Campagna.” N.p.: n.p., 1891. Print.

Freiherr von Eichendorff, Joseph. “The Marble Statue.” N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Frisk, Claire. “A Glimpse of Genre: The Gothic Romance.” The Blog of Toledo Lucas County

Public Library, 2017, www.toledolibrary.org/blog/a-glimpse-of-genre-the-gothic-

romance. Accessed 4 March 2021.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” N.p.: n.p., 1844. Print.

Lin, F. “Chapter 1: Definition and Representations of Femme Fatale Before Wilde and

Beardsley.” rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/bitstream/20.500.12235/97606/2/n069221001902.pdf.

Accessed 4 March 2021.

Stuart, Esther. “Femme Fatales and the Shifting Gender Norms of the 19th Century.” College of

Graduate Studies Georgia Southern University, 2017,

digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2689&context=etd.

Accessed 4 March 2021.

Tryforos, Matina. “Historicizing the Femme Fatale: From Sensation Fiction to Film Noir.” San

Francisco State University, 2018,

dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/204047/AS362018ENGLT794.pdf?sequenc

e=1. Accessed 4 March 2021.

“Women in Early Gothic Fiction. The Stereotypical Depiction of Women as Femmes Fatales or

Damsels in Distress in ‘The Italian’ and ‘The Monk’.” Grin, 2011,

www.grin.com/document/321931. Accessed 4 March 2021.