In the 1943 thrillerThe Blackbirder, Julie Guille is a woman of mystery. Beautiful, intelligent, and strong enough to be independent of male support, she represents a challenge to every man in the novel. Part of her mystery and the threat she poses to masculine dominance is her endless ability to change her appearance, and thus change her already indeterminate identity; she confounds meaning by undermining the ability of the image to convey internal truth, a trait that feminist film scholar Mary Ann Doane says is the trademark of thefemme fatale, or the deadly woman, a central archetype of film noir and literary noir. In fact, Julie Guille troubles meaning itself, since as an orphan and then a refugee, her class and national identities are uncertain, even to her. Like manyfemmes fatales, her artificial disguises and her love of independence makes her the “problem” woman for male characters to solve or control. But Julie is not thefemme fataleofThe Blackbirder- she is the heroine, the detective, the wrongly accused, and the novel’s only narrative point of view. The skills that usually define afemme fataleas an evil and destructive character that men both desire and despise are present in Julie, but they are what make her the heroine; she is cunning, perceptive, strong willed, independent, stylish, and a skilled actress. Rather than making her the villain, these attributes make her uniquely adept at maintaining her hard-won autonomy and self-preservation in a wartime nation dominated by paranoia, surveillance, and the threat of violence.