How does Wilder portray the characters and their relationship in the penultimate scene in ‘double indemnity’?

Wilder portrays his characters as sly and untrustworthy with lots of secrets in the penultimate scene of ‘Double Indemnity’ He also portrays Walter as the more dominant character throughout the scene. He does this by having the room very dark and shadowy. For instance, when we first see Walter in this scene he enters the room and his face is covered in shadow and we can hardly see him, the fact his face is obscured could foreshadow that his character is very secretive and very shady, not one to be trusted and that he may be hiding an alternative darker motive to his visit. We find this to be true when he shoots Phyllis later on in the scene.

Earlier on in the scene Walter goes over to an open window and closes is and in doing so he darkens the room and shuts the music off from outside. In doing this he also makes the room very secluded and closes him self and Phyllis off from the outside world. Signifying both their possible deaths.

Walter is portrayed as very dominant over Phyllis in the penultimate scene. The dominance is shown by her always looking up to him while he towers over her and when she sits in her chair he towers over her again as she sits in his shadow. Also when Walter is standing over her he places his hands near her neck, almost as if he is about to strangle her. This is a violent and threating position and shows his character to be strong, violent and dominant.

Phyllis’s character, the femme fatale, maybe portrayed as quite weak in this scene. This is unusual because usually the femme fatale is a liberated and strong sexual woman. But we know she is weak because when she goes to shoot Walter she can only fire one shot which she knows won’t be enough to kill him. Even after Walter taunts her and tells her to shoot him again. This again shows that she is weaker than him because she has fallen for him. Whereas Walter fires two shots after one another to kill Phyllis. The significance of Walters second shot further backs up his dominant male role as he is more than willing to shoot Phyllis twice without regret or a second thought whereas Phyllis was to weak to fire again and actually kill Walter.

Having Phyllis’s late husband’s chair sitting in the corner of the room shows us that she is weak as well. It also represents absences and presence all at the same time. The absence of her husband and the presence of death. Ultimately Phyllis’s death.  It shows Phyllis isn’t able to let go of her husband even after she was part of his murder, and she isn’t ready to let him go yet. It could also show that she feels some regret towards what she has done and that she is soon to be reunited with him again.

The relationships between Phyllis and Walter change a lot during this scene. At the beginning their relationship is based on murder and cheating, and they feel they must stay together to cover each other’s backs for the murder, but you can quickly see this relationship fall apart during the penultimate scene. For instance Walter tells Phyllis that he doesn’t even want to be associated to the murder anymore, meaning he doesn’t want anything to do with Phyllis either, this is a negative impact on their relationship and again shows us that Walter is the leading and most dominant character.

When Walter places himself above Phyllis it makes him seem even more big and violent, this is one way Wilder chooses to represent gender. This also makes Phyllis feel small and possibly frightened. It shows a huge gap in the way men and women are treated and shows us their relationship falling apart even more and becoming a dangerous and fearful relationship on Phyllis’s part.

The biggest change in their relationship is when the shooting happens. It shows that the relationship has completely broken down and there is no way it can be fixed. The scene’s title ‘End of the Line’ can also foreshadow the end of the relationship and the end of one of the characters life. It also refers to the trolley metaphor that Walter uses while vaguely explain why he is going to kill Phyllis, although at the time I don’t think Phyllis released that the trolley metaphor meant she was going to die. The use of this complicated metaphor could even be used to show that men are seen as smarter and more intelligent while the female gender is seen as naïve and not as intelligent.

So in conclusion, both characters are sly and use each other to cover their own backs. But in the end we see their true colour’s, Walter turns out to be even more heartless then we may have already though whereas Phyllis is shown to be weak, this weakness and vulnerability is a strange characteristic for a femme fatale so makes the scene more intense and unique. 

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