This dissertation presents the genealogy of the femme fatale in Spanish literature from its origin in romanticism to its peak in modernism. My study contributes to the field of geopolitics, gender studies and feminism, as it comments on different presentations and uses of the femme fatale in male and female authors' works in the nineteenth and beginning of twentieth centuries. While most studies dedicated to the femme fatale in Spanish literature focus on specific authors and periods, no research exists on the relationship between this figure, imperialism and feminism over such an extensive period of time. The main goal of Imperialist Seductions is to demonstrate how the figure of the femme fatale is a significant factor in understanding (post)imperial Spain, as well as a valuable tool for better comprehension of the historical development of gender, domesticity, patriarchy and power structures in Spain. I demonstrate how, in women authors' works, the femme fatale is a performative strategy for expression of feminist ideas and a symbol of the Spanish imperial-national crisis in male writers' works. One of the most innovative aspects of this study is that it questions the entire concept of domesticity in the nineteenth century and combines feminism with geopolitics and imperialism through the figure of the femme fatale.
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