Femme Fatale’s Evolution in “Of Human Boundage”: From Temptation and Humiliation to Madness and Death

Abstract

This article describes the females’s character evolution in the film Of human
boundage (John Cromwell, 1934), starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. The
female main character of the story plays typical femme fatale’s role, passing through different stages throughout the film, which are analyzed in detail in this article. At first, the woman appears discreetly and in a positive way, to go slowly transforming into a cold woman who constantly humiliates the male character. Finally, as in other films previous to World War II ending, her character is punished by the writers, sheltering her into madness and finally making her dye.
By contrast, the male character embodies the archetype of an anti-hero who will be transformed positively at the end of the story. This paper studies the evolution of the two protagonists of the film and in particular how the women as a femme fatale is represented in the different phases of the film. The analysis is based in a narrative methodology and applies the principles of the anthropological structures of the imaginary introduced by Gilbert Durand in the 60s.