Student Question
In The Maltese Falcon, how do the three female characters both adhere to and defy traditional femininity?
Quick answer:
In each case, the women characters in The Maltese Falcon adhere to traditional roles simply because of their obvious traditional femininity, shown either in their attractiveness or in their outward compliance to the male characters' demands and planning. Their underlying motivations, however, and the freedom of choice entailed by their behavior that might have been judged harshly by traditional standards, can, on the other hand, be interpreted as independent or even a form of "transgression."
The principal woman character in The Maltese Falcon is Brigid O'Shaughnessy. On one level, she functions as the obvious femme fatale, a standard role in detective and crime stories to the point of being a cliché, though Hammett is one of the writers who created the cliché.
Brigid is a "modern" woman of her time. She does things on her own initiative in obtaining possession of the falcon and she sleeps with Spade. Both actions are violations of the moral code, which included passivity and chastity, applying to women from previous generations. But it's also true that she conforms to "traditional" roles by ultimately doing things at the behest of men—both Gutman and Spade. The fact that she has lured and then killed Miles Archer in some sense encapsulates—and in an extremely negative fashion—both sides of this dual role. She uses a stereotypical form of "feminine wiles" (as they...
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would have been regarded at the time) in manipulating both Miles and Sam; but at the same time, her actions, however bad they may be, represent a form of independence and assertiveness.
Archer's wife Iva has been having an affair with Spade. This, too, is a violation of the moral code, but the implication is that Spade is manipulating her and that she's another compliant or subservient female fulfilling a stereotypical role.
Spade's secretary Effie's behavior is the subtlest of any of the women in the story, but it can be seen as portraying a similar duality. She's the loyal operative Sam needs, and his asking her opinion of Brigid is a kind of test for her understanding of another woman. In some sense, this shows Spade's blinkered viewpoint, because he seems to assume that all women think alike and therefore that Effie should somehow have an infallible understanding of Brigid. "She's all right," Effie tells him, and this couldn't be more wrong.
Yet at the end of the story, Effie, too, shows her independence of mind—certainly not the traditional way either a woman or a secretary is supposed to act—by making it clear she's disgusted with Spade for his having coldly turned Brigid, a woman he quite possibly was in love with, over to the police. "She killed Miles," Spade says, harshly indicating that Brigid was herself cold and amoral. It's up to the reader to decide if Spade's own heartlessness, as it is judged by Effie, is justified in the situation.