Double Indemnity

Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1936

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary

Huff plans to kill Phyllis. He believes that murdering her is an inevitability to cover his own tracks. Huff thinks that Phyllis and Sachetti planned to set him up from the beginning to take the fall for the murder due to Sachetti’s frequent visits to Phyllis in the last few weeks.

Huff plans to frame Sachetti for the murder; he has a copy of the key for Sachetti’s car as liability for Sachetti’s loan. Huff tells Phyllis to meet him in a park at night and gives her a description of Sachetti’s car as the car he will be driving. He lies and says he got a new car, which tips Phyllis off on his planned betrayal.

Huff then goes to a midnight theater production for an alibi, slips out, and steals Sachetti’s car. He drives to the park and waits for Phyllis. Phyllis shoots Huff from the bushes, leaving him to bleed out in Sachetti’s car. Huff manages to stumble back to his car, which he stashed in the park as a getaway vehicle, and blacks out.

Chapter 12 Summary

Huff wakes up in a hospital room. Keyes tells him that the theater program pamphlet he tucked in his jacket saved his life by slowing down the bullet. The newspapers have published the shooting already and Lola and Sachetti have been detained as suspects. Keyes believes Sachetti murdered Mr. Nirdlinger and wanted to kill Huff, who knew something vital to incriminate him. Huff realizes that Lola is now a prime suspect and that she might be brutalized by police because of his actions. He confesses to Keyes to save Lola.

Chapter 13 Summary

Keyes listens to Huff’s confession and leaves to get Norton and their lawyers. Huff threatens to kill Keyes if they hurt Lola. Key returns with Norton and two of the company’s top lawyers. Keyes informs Huff that Lola believes Sachetti shot Huff in order to prove his loyalty to Lola. Lola has no idea who really shot Huff or his involvement in her father’s death.

Keyes tells Huff about Phyllis’s past. She was a nurse who worked for Sachetti’s father. Three children died under her care. One of the children was related to the late Mrs. Nirdlinger, who was set to control a large amount of inheritance if the child died. Phyllis killed the two other children to cover her tracks. Sachetti’s father’s practice was ruined after the deaths. Sachetti suspected Phyllis was behind the deaths and privately investigated her.

After Lola’s mother died, Sachetti’s suspicions were confirmed. Phyllis knew he was onto her. When he fell in love with Lola, Phyllis spread rumors about him. Keyes believes Lola was Phyllis’s next target because she was set to inherit most of her father’s wealth. Keyes explains that Lola and Sachetti were picked up at the scene of the crime. They were both following Phyllis and found Huff unconscious in his locked car when the police arrived.

Keyes offers Huff a way out of prison and a court case that will be plastered all over the media. Norton and the lawyers, who are in on the deal, leave the room so they can claim in court to have no knowledge of the deal. Keyes gives Huff the opportunity to take a boat to Mexico under a false name if Huff sends him testimony in writing via mail to arrive after Huff takes the boat. To the public, it will look as if Huff fled the country and admitted to his crimes after he was a safe distance away from the United States. Huff agrees to the deal, so long as Lola isn’t hurt.

Lola comes into Huff’s hospital room to see him one last time. She makes him promise not to prosecute Sachetti, still believing he shot Huff because he was jealous. Huff agrees and refuses to kiss her one last time. Huff finally feels at peace.

Chapter 14 Summary

The events of the novel and its narration up to this point are framed as the testimony Huff wrote and sent to Keyes. Chapter 14 is recorded in a note Huff writes before his suicide.

Huff takes the boat to Mexico only to find Phyllis is on it as well. The two learn that Lola and Sachetti are getting married. Huff and Phyllis realizes that the younger couple has a bright life ahead of them and that they have no life ahead of them at all.

Phyllis wants to meet her “bridegroom,” the personification of Death. Huff agrees to go with her and give her away to Death. The two decide to die by suicide at night, under a bright moon, by drowning in the ocean. Huff records his last words as Phyllis paints her face white and dons her red shroud to meet Death.

Chapters 11-14 Analysis

The third and final section of the novel contains the climax, where the narrative’s conflict is resolved, of Phyllis shooting Huff in their double suicide.

Cain uses a clear three-act structure to hook readers and generate intrigue within the very short space of the novel. To strengthen his structure, Cain relies on character archetypes that would become standard in crime fiction. These archetypes serve as shorthand for types of people that Cain’s audience would immediately understand: The murderous femme fatale (Phyllis), the ingénue (Lola), the hardboiled detective (Keyes), and the corrupted agent (Huff) are all stock characters. Cain does not develop these characters beyond their archetypes. This allows him to spend more time on developing the intrigue and tension at the heart of the novel.

The confessional framing of the narrative is revealed in Chapter 14. Everything in the previous Chapters was narrated by Huff in the form of a written confessional. Chapter 14 is recorded in a suicide note left in Huff’s ship cabin. Cain’s use of confession to narrate Double Indemnity means that the final scene of Huff’s death can only be conveyed through impression, symbolism, and sentence fragments. The actual death is not described, but great attention is given to Phyllis’s appearance.

The final sentence, “The Moon,” is a fragment that leaves their double suicide at the level of implication. “The moon” might remind Huff of the honest world he’s fallen from, or his moonlit rides with Lola and his love for her. He writes this final thought while Phyllis, dressed as Death, enters the room and looms silently over his shoulder. She says nothing but Huff can “feel her” like a physical weight. Here, the arc of his corruption at the hands of the femme fatale becomes complete.

Huff’s corruption and the innocence of Lola weigh heavily on Huff’s mind when he writes his final note. The image of the moon sits high above the dark waters that he drowns in. This final impression exemplifies the novel’s motif of light and dark and their juxtaposition, represented by the dark ocean and the bright moon.