Who is the ultimate femme fatale? Post to win £100 John Lewis voucher and signed copies of The Sudden Departure Of The Frasers

[EmilyMumsnet]

How does one get whatever one wants? Pop culture seems to have the answer: become a femme fatale. It seems that as long as you're a sexy woman with a red lipstick and a good line in seduction, your destructive powers can know no bounds.

Louise Candlish's latest novel, The Sudden Departure Of The Frasers, deals with one such woman. When Christy and Joe Davenport are handed the keys to their dream house, they do wonder how they nabbed it for such a low price. Christy finds herself drawn deeper into the mystery of the house's previous occupant - one Amber Fraser - and a dark and shocking secret.

For a chance to win a £100 John Lewis voucher and a signed copy of the book, tell us who is, in your opinion, the ultimate femme fatale. Does Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca reign supreme, or does she pale in comparison to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct?

5 runners-up will also receive signed copies of the book. Post on the thread before Monday 29 June to have a chance of winning.

This competition is sponsored by Penguin Books.

This competition is now closed. Winners will be contacted shortly

Perspicacia has it, surely. Becky Sharp is the model for pretty much all of them since 1850.

Lynn Bracken as a Veronica Lake lookalike in L.A. Confidential, played by Kim Bassinger who quite rightly won an Oscar in the role.

From film - yes Jessica Rabbit!

From literature - Lady Macbeth

Katniss Everdeen - strong, determined, sexy, and doing the best for her family and friends. A modern woman.

Scarlett O'Hara

Becky Sharp for sure!

Although Moll Flanders would give Sharp a run for her money!

Cleopatra
Lady Macbeth
Cathy (Wuthering Heights)

Scarlett O'Hara and Jessica Rabbit.

Bathsheba Everdene in Far From the Madding Crowd, a classic femme fatale.

Lady Macbeth.

I think Rebecca de Winter, in Rebecca. We never meet her but the shadow she casts over the novel is long enough for any femme fatale.

Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks

Betty in Betty Blue

My nomination for ultimate femme fatale has to be Medea, as depicted in the plays by Euripides and Seneca. A beautiful, mysterious foreign woman who is driven by love for her man to do things that devastate both him and her (ie kill their children when he betrays her). For me its the combination of love and hate that makes all of her actions ambivalent (before the murders), and also the combination of powerfulness (expressed through violence and witchcraft) and vulnerability (as a foreign woman who betrayed her family for her husband she has nowhere to go once he betrays her) that make her a femme fatale. In Seneca's play when she commits the murders she says: "now I have become Medea" - that self-consciounsness, the sense that she knows she is playing out a role, seems to be characteristic of a femme fatale.

To me Anna Karenina, although not strictly a femme fatale, still, a 'femme and a half' in my opinion especially in that era riddled with prejudices of every kind, then perhaps (but not necessarily in this order) Scarlett O'Hara and last but by no means least, Audrey Hepburn, oh, yes, cute Audrey :-)

Morgan le Fay and Nimue are pretty fatale imo.

Another one for Bridget Gregory from The Last Seduction - in fact I wrote my dissertation on that film many moons ago.

Also The White Witch from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - seducing Edmund with Turkish Delight!

Bess of Hardwick, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy

miss piggy

Lolita.

Well, I'd have to say George McKenzie in "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" - she's sexy, empowered and unapologetic. Not sure I like the concept of a woman with a strong sexual identity being necessarily destructive.

Definitely Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity followed by Mary Astor in Maltese Falcon. I think Rita Hayworth in Gilda is too vulnerable. But Janine in Eastenders rates pretty highly.

I agree with these who have already been mentioned:
Anne Boleyn
Jessica Rabbit
Nimue
Marilyn Monroe
Katniss Everdene
Lady Macbeth
Mata Hari
Cleopatra
Helen of Troy

I would also add:
Cersei Lannister
Margery Tyrell
And who was the girl in 'The Crucible' who accused John Procor of witchcraft? She was definitely a femme fatale, despite only being a teenager at the time. Winona Ryder portrayed her fantastically in the film.

I completely disagree with Elizabeth Bennett though, she was far too well mannered and well meaning on the whole.

Scarlett O'Hara

If you asked my Mum then she'd say Carol Vordeman, because she's convinced my Dad has a thing for her, because it once took him three weeks to notice my Mum had her hair cut but he noticed Carol's new 'do the first time she showed it off on Countdown.

Helen of Troy has to in the running. Wars fought over her, a thousand ships launched for her rescue.

And I've always been quite fond of Jolene in the Dolly Parton song. Definitely a femme fatal if ever there was one.

Frida Kahlo was something of a femme fatale as well by all accounts, and she's still fascinating people today. She has a beauty and allure that's difficult to look away from.