Double Indemnity

Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1936

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Light and Darkness

Light and darkness are often used to convey ideas about purity and corruption. Cain relies on this stock motif to create a dramatic, moody atmosphere around Huff’s descent into duplicity. The scenes that explore Huff’s corruption always happen in the dark or with imagery of darkness, such as the “deep end” that Huff wants to jump into, the murder of Nirdlinger, and Huff’s panic attacks in his pitch-black bedroom. Darkness is a cover for crime and the resulting guilt. The “deep end” that Huff stares into when he begins his affair with Phyllis turns the dark into a deep void that threatens to swallow him. The “deep end” imagery foreshadows Huff’s suicide by drowning in pitch-black waters.

The light represents the good, honest path that Huff has lost. The scenes of light center on Lola, the innocent ingénue. Huff turns his lamp on and banishes the darkness when he realizes he loves Lola, the two of them watch a bright moon rise, and the bright moonlight is the last thing Huff thinks of before he dies. All light centers on Lola, who Huff cannot have but wants to protect.

Cain conflates Lola with light and the life Huff has left behind to emphasize Huff’s corruption and inability to return to a normal life.

The Moon

The moon is linked with Lola, light, and innocence. Its height in the sky symbolizes both the importance of Lola to Huff and his corrupted nature. Huff describes watching the moon rise with Lola:

We were sitting there, watching the moon come up over the ocean. That sounds funny, don’t it, that you can watch the moon come up over the Pacific Ocean? You can, just the same. The coast here runs almost due east and west, and when the moon comes up, off to your left, it’s pretty as a picture. (82)

By posing a rhetorical question, Huff varies the rhythm of his language and gives dramatic weight to the scene, cueing readers into its personal importance. The moon coming up over the ocean is presented as a sunrise in reverse: Instead of marking the beginning of the day, the moon rises to mark the start of the night while still bringing light. The sunrise imagery is juxtaposed with the darkness the novel takes place in—and nearly every event takes place at night. The contrast emphasizes the darkness Huff lives in, and Lola refusing to hold his hand reinforces this emphasis. The moon’s presence in Huff’s encounter with Lola and during his suicide suggests that Huff could never come back to living in the normal world after his crimes, but that he strongly desires to.

Death

In Double Indemnity, Death is personified with human qualities. He is a man that Phyllis loves from a distance and wants to marry. Cain writes Death with a capital D at times to signify that the concept is being treated as a proper noun, like with a person’s name. Sometimes Phyllis believes she is Death and makes the line between herself and Death as separate people unclear. When Phyllis kills herself, she makes sure to dress for the occasion and meet her “bridegroom” Death in wedding-attire. Death is a punishment for Huff, who has no desire to die, but for the femme fatale it is the ultimate reward for her crimes.

Characters’ relationships to death illustrate their corruption. Sachetti and Lola have nothing to do with death. Lola believes Sachetti shot Huff not to kill, but to get his point across. This assures Lola that Sachetti is a good man who loves her. In contrast, Phyllis craves death and loves Death as a personified man. Lola and Sachetti continue on in marriage while Phyllis and Huff attend a metaphorical wedding with Death. The two weddings are juxtaposed to highlight the different relationships with death the two couples have.

Phyllis’s relationship to death is presented as “pathological.” Classical crime fiction often relies on outdated notions about mental illness to create morally corrupted villains, where mental illness is often used to create narrative conflict. Phyllis’s constant personification of Death is both a remnant of outdated ideas on mental health—the idea of a woman being hysterical and having a nervous breakdown— and a symbol of her corruption.