35 pages • 1 hour read
James M. CainDouble Indemnity
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1936A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Temptation and the Femme Fatale
Temptation in Double Indemnity manifests through darkness and the sexuality of women. Huff stands on the “edge” of the “deep end” after discovering his sexual attraction to Phyllis. When he lets her leave his home without admiring her figure, he describes it as running “away from the edge” (16). Before the murder, Huff can only interact with Phyllis in two ways: with an inability to control his lust and desire, or completely ignoring her presence to avoid his feelings. Darkness and unbridled female sexuality are expressed through the femme fatale, the symbol of corrupting temptation. Classical crime fiction relies heavily on this biased presentation of women’s sexuality.
Classical American crime fiction often portray crime as the norm and virtue as a rarity. The femme fatale is an alluring representation of how crime tempts the average, everyday career man. The destruction of a once-honest career man by the femme fatale is an inevitably in crime fiction. Despite Huff wanting to run away from Phyllis and treating her “like an alley cat” (16), he cannot escape her. The two begin plotting the murder the next night. The hold Phyllis immediately establishes over Huff after a single encounter is semi-magical. Her inescapable allure suggests that honest, everyday men are predisposed to crime and will commit it with the right amount of temptation.
Phyllis is the only woman who expresses her sexual desires, while Lola expresses none. Cain implies that the expression of female sexuality prevents men from staying on an honest career path. According to the worldview of crime fiction, crime lurks around every corner.
After the murder, Huff spends his time in darkness. The night of the murder, he stares into the dark and feels a “chill or something and [starts] to tremble” (54). Huff continues a nightly pattern of laying in the dark and staring at nothing until he realizes he is in love with Lola.
The play between scenes of light and dark became a staple of film noir when Double Indemnity was turned into a movie in 1944. Film noir is moody, melodramatic, and relies on black and white film to explore moments of intense lighting and darkness. The darkness Huff lurks in symbolizes corruption and seedy activity, while scenes of light symbolize innocence, insight, or virtue. Cain represents these cinematic staples through literature before they hit the Hollywood screen.
Innocence and the Ingénue
Innocence is represented in Double Indemnity through the use of light and sexual modesty, expressed through the ingénue. Huff feels love for Lola that is distinctly different than his erotic desire for Phyllis. There are three moments where Huff is bathed in light: in his car ride with Lola, when he realizes he loves Lola, and when he dies by suicide with Phyllis.
Huff bars himself from ever being innocent by falling for Phyllis and committing the murder. Before killing Nirdlinger, Huff cannot help but “peep” into the “deep end,” straining to see what is there. The “deep end” is dark and stops Huff from discerning its secrets until he commits the murder and metaphorically falls in.
The moon is bright and far away, a symbol of Huff’s inability to ever have Lola. Huff says: “As soon as [the moon] lifted out of the sea, she slipped her hand into mine. I took it, but she took it away, quick” (82). The synchronization between the moon’s rising and Lola’s movement links the two actions in Huff’s mind. He later refers to the evening as “watching the moon come up […] with Lola” (86). Huff’s final words to atone for his crimes are “[t]he moon.”
Huff ends his life by jumping into the ocean, which takes him down further into the dark “deep end” that Phyllis brought him to, away from the moon and Lola. Cain’s use of the moon as a symbol of innocence and stand-in for Lola suggests that some crimes permanently rob one of innocence. Huff cannot become untainted after murdering Nirdlinger for Phyllis, which is underscored by his escape to another country leading to his suicide.
The equivalence between sexual modesty and innocence is common in classical American crime fiction. This is almost exclusively expressed by an ingénue, a young girl who is sexually unavailable and innocent in a world full of crime. The ingénue exists in crime fiction as a foil to the corrupt femme fatale. The ingénue is usually an object of desire for the hardboiled detective or the criminal, and often plays the role of the damsel in distress.
Huff’s crimes put Lola’s innocence in harm’s way. Huff dies not to save her life, but to save her innocence, which is valued above all else. In the world of crime fiction, corruption and crime are the norm and ingénues are a rarity, highlighting the value of their virtue and chastity. Particularly for male authors like Cain, the ingénue, with her sexual modesty and value as an object to be rescued, represents the ideal woman that men should desire.
Corruption and Money
Justice and money are incompatible in Double Indemnity. Huff compares the insurance industry to a giant “gambling wheel” where the goal is to sucker clients into buying policies they don’t need and to stop clients from getting money when they need it.
General Fidelity and its president Norton want to stop Phyllis from collecting on her husband’s policy because the payout is huge. General Fidelity has no legal reason to not pay Phyllis, nor any factual evidence that Nirdlinger’s death was not an accident. Norton says “I owe it to my stockholders to throw the [case] into court” (65), revealing that the company’s goal is to pay as little as possible while keeping profit as high as possible. General Fidelity spends 100,000 dollars per year to advertise that it is the “friend of the widow and orphan” (62), which Phyllis’s case reveals is a marketing ploy.
It is implied that the 100,000 dollars spent on advertising is an investment that more than makes up for itself. When Keyes allows Huff to escape the United States, it is partly because extended media attention and legal battles over the murder would ruin the reputation of the company as a defender of widows and orphans. Huff believes that so long as huge amounts of money are paid out on people’s deaths, there will always be murderers like himself. Cain presents a pessimistic view on the nature of money and greed: The concept of money itself will always create people like Huff and Phyllis.
Money is an inherently corrupting force in Double Indemnity and is closely tied to men’s heterosexual desire for women. Huff repeatedly stresses that he killed Nirdlinger “for money and a woman,” linking the two together as corrupting objects of desire (80).
In the book’s world, women are treated like objects and are not inherently corrupting like money is. Lola’s purity makes Huff admit his crimes to save her. Cain portrays women as having the possibility to be good, while money is irredeemable. Cain portrays money as a structural element of society that corrupts and creates the source material that inspires crime fiction.
While Phyllis and Huff commit murder, the white-collar crime of insurance fraud is at the heart of their crimes. This is a crime that is limited to the world of people who have large amounts of money, understand how money flows through society, and desire more money. Huff is juxtaposed with Sachetti, an honest young man who has very little money and needs a loan to finish school. Cain compares women like Phyllis to money and contrasts the well-off Huff to the poor Sachetti, implying that Huff’s corruption is endemic to the financial sector.
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