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

Character Analysis

Walter Huff

Walter Huff is a 34-year-old insurance agent working for General Fidelity in California. It is implied that Huff had never committed a serious crime before meeting Phyllis and was well-behaved. As a seasoned agent, Huff is in a unique position to game the system and commit fraud. He is the narrator for Double Indemnity, which is framed as a confessional he recorded after committing his crimes.

Walter Huff is the archetypal corrupted agent of an organization, doomed to calamity because of Temptation and the Femme Fatale’s seductiveness. Much of the novel takes place at night and Huff spends most of it in the dark, whether he is lurking outside waiting to kill Nirdlinger or in bedroom panicking over his fate.

Huff’s dark surroundings symbolize his corrupted nature; the few moments he has in the light suggest the good man he once was. Huff is notably in the light when he realizes he loves Lola and when he kills himself due to crushing guilt.

Phyllis Nirdlinger

Phyllis is the femme fatale—French for “deadly woman”—of Double Indemnity. The femme fatale is a literary archetype, or stock character, and an important trope in crime fiction. The femme fatale expresses unrestrained sexuality and has an almost-magical power to seduce men. The men she seduces become corrupted and usually commit immoral acts for her, such as murder. The femme fatale is almost always seen as evil due to not being chaste or hiding her desires.

Phyllis is an extreme example of the femme fatale. She kills for wealth and dreams of seducing Death, whom she personifies with human qualities as a man. Phyllis also considers herself to be Death at times. Leading up to the murder of her husband, Phyllis wears a red shroud and deathly white makeup while carrying a dagger around her house. She wears the same outfit when she and Huff die by suicide.

Phyllis calls Death her “bridegroom [,] the only one I ever loved” (114). Phyllis considers her death at the end of the novel as a marriage to Death. Her shroud-like outfit is a metaphorical wedding gown. Femme fatales are often flat characters who exist to seduce men and be a source of conflict for protagonists. Cain takes this two-dimensional character to the extreme by aligning Phyllis with death and making her a symbol of doom and darkness. She is so in love with Death that she wishes to marry him.

In crime fiction and film noir, the femme fatale exists to scandalize and titillate. The character archetype is a product of outdated ideas about women and the casual misogyny of the early 20th century. Femme fatales are always punished by death or tragedy for the power they exert over men, which comes from being openly sexual. They are often juxtaposed with a chaste and pure woman—the ingénue—who acts as a foil to the femme fatale.

Lola Nirdlinger

Lola Nirdlinger is the 19-year-old daughter of Mr. Nirdlinger and his previous, unnamed wife. Phyllis Nirdlinger is her stepmother. Lola is a foil to Phyllis. She is an ingénue, a character archetype in literature. Ingénues are usually young women who are naïve, virtuous, and sexually modest. Huff’s attraction to Phyllis is an “unhealthy excitement” that is portrayed as dirty and dangerous, while his feelings towards Lola bring a “sweet peace” due to her innocence and modesty. This illustrates the Madonna-whore dichotomy, where women are seen as good or evil: They are either virtuous like Lola or promiscuous and corrupting like Phyllis.

Lola cannot love Huff because of her feelings for Sachetti. Her belief that Sachetti shot Huff to prove his love for her is an example of the naivety of the ingénue.

Ingénues often act as a literary device to make male protagonists act. Huff could have gotten away with his crimes: He had an airtight alibi while Sachetti did not. Huff only confesses to his crimes when the innocent Lola is in danger of brutal police interrogation.

Ingénues like Lola also tend to be extremely young, either barely in adulthood or children who are soon-to-be adults.

Barton Keyes

Keyes is the figurative hardboiled detective determined to solve a perfect crime. “Hardboiled” in Cain’s time period meant having a cynical attitude toward violence and human affairs. Keyes is unmoved by Nirdlinger’s death and Phyllis’s status as a widow. Keyes is the only one who suspects foul play, a conclusion that is founded largely on instinct. Hardboiled detectives often rely on gut feelings and hunches, usually due to rugged expertise in their fields that they gain over a lifetime. Keyes sees human nature as “a little bit crooked” (104). He has worked at General Fidelity longer than anyone else, earning him the grizzled expertise typically associated with hardboiled detectives.

Keyes ensures that General Fidelity gives a small payout to Lola for her distress and deceased father. Ruth Snyder, the woman whose case inspired Double Indemnity, also had a daughter who received a small payout from the insurance company after her mother was executed. Cain’s portrayal of Keyes’s sentiment aligns him with the hardboiled detective. Hardboiled detectives are generally display small shows of sentiment once they have solved their impossible cases. Keyes is a variation on the hardboiled detective archetype, who is almost exclusively portrayed as a literal detective or police agent.