Cain Explores the Malleability of Human Nature in Double Indemnity

Our professor has strongly cautioned us not to use “you” in writing our papers. I can now see why, after reading James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity. An author writing, “You’ve read in the papers” (3), or, “I think I told you about Norton and Keyes” (56), points a finger directly at the reader. There but for the grace of god goes…you. Cain shows us a path we could all take – what Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter terms his “dark passenger.” If nothing has been learned from the novels we have read so far, we have certainly learned there is a seedy underbelly beneath any ray of sunshine on these mean streets. You – even you – could plan and commit a murder. Huff is just a guy doing his job, and by the end of a routine evening decides to murder so that he can have a woman and help her spend the insurance money. It is that split-second decision-making that Cain shows us is critical. By manipulating both his characters and his readers, Cain shows the balance of the nature of good and evil on a razor’s edge.

P. T. Barnum is credited with coining the phrase, “there’s a sucker born every minute,” and the sentiment continues to prove right with each passing generation. Given the right circumstance, anyone can be duped. Cain gives us an immediate instance with Huff’s entrance into the Nirdlinger home. “To move this stuff, you’ve got to get in” (4), Huff explains, and charms his way past the maid with very little effort. Another manipulation, and done so easily, Huff cons Nirdlinger with a ruse involving policy rates in order to cook the books back at the office. “When you offer a man about twenty bucks more than he thought he had when you came in, he wouldn’t ask too many questions about why you offer it to him” (32). Insurance claims adjustor Keyes explains his own cautious nature in this way: “I don’t often like somebody. At my trade, you can’t afford to. The whole human race looks – a little bit crooked” (104). Keyes is right to be wary, though even he is taken by the larger con and is misled along the way by Huff. The one character who believes so strongly not to trust other people, even his instinct – his nature – is malleable enough that even he is played for a fool.
By the end of the novel, we know that Huff has recounted all details as part of his confession. He not only confesses the crime, but meticulously explains his brilliant cover-up. The reader cannot help but notice the abundant effort taken in order to create the perfect crime, though Huff assured us at the start, “there won’t be any slips” (18). Huff creates his alibi with an eyewitness – his Filipino houseboy – as well as a long series of phone calls that concrete him at his home on the night of the murder. “[Joe Pete, the security guard] had to keep a log, and enter everything he did, not only by date, but also by time” (41). Even seeing a show a day early and getting the program evening-of, taking every possibility into account, is amazingly calculated. (As an aside, I have my doubts that any folded theater program could slow a bullet, but I will admit I have never tried.) Each step in the murder plot is thoughtfully explained away by concealed evidence and misplaced clues – a narrow-ledged balance beam of good and evil.

Cain even plays fast and loose with the reader’s affections toward his characters. Take Huff, for example. We see him fall for Phyllis right out of the gate, and the very next thing Cain does is has Keyes give him an attaboy: “If other departments of this company would show half of the sense that you show…” (8). Maybe Huff is a good guy, and maybe he can avoid that calculating spider, Phyllis. Huff continues his fall, though, and when he decides to murder Nirdlinger, Phyllis even gives him an out: “I don’t love [Nirdlinger], but he’s never done anything to me” (18). Right there, Huff could walk away, no harm done – except adultery – a crime to be dealt with by another court entirely. When discussing their plans for murder, Phyllis explains, “[Nirdlinger]’s not happy. He’ll be better off – dead” (18). Murder becomes easier if the murder’s conscience can be eased knowing that the victim is actually being done a favor. After all the calculating and cover-up, Cain plays with our need for redemption by feeding our gullibility. The perfect murder has been accomplished with its bow neatly tied, and Huff wins us back again by confessing. “I couldn’t think of anything but Lola, a lot of cops around her, maybe beating her up, trying to make her spill something that she knew no more about than the man in the moon” (101). Huff’s downfall leads to Lola’s redemption: his evil, now confessed, becomes her salvation. A bit wobbly on that razor’s edge balance-beam, but that careful balance leads to a strong dismount: you, the reader, have been duped, too.

One law of thermodynamics states that the universe tends toward entropy, or simply: disorder. Taken to an extreme, it could follow that human nature tends toward evil, if part of evil’s definition is disorder. Problem is: I don’t buy it; I think human nature tends toward good. If I were younger, this paper would have been easier to write, as I find it more and more difficult to declare anything as cut and dried, definitively one way or the other. What I think does not matter, though; the point is what Cain shows us, which is how fragile that good/evil tipping point can be and how those suckers born every minute can be sucked in.