In the film Double Indemnity, “an insurance representative lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses the suspicion of an insurance investigator” (IMDb). Throughout the film, we can see an artistic interpretation of fate or a lack of free will to an extent. Walter, being the insurance agent, finds himself so drawn to Phyllis, that he cannot escape murder. The whole movie, the audience listens to him talk about how he can’t stop himself, no matter what he does, making for an almost perfect murder “straight down the line.”

We can see in the film that both Phyllis and Walter are not satisfied with their lives. We find early on that Phyllis is dissatisfied with her husband, and how he was away all the time and paid her little to no attention. When he would give her attention, it was usually negative. Along those problems, her step daughter would get the attention from her husband that she craved and envied. This looks at first like her main drive for the murder of her husband.

Walter is an insurance salesman, going out and convincing people to buy his insurance for his company. The only reason I can see from him to be satisfied is the fact that he has his eyes set on Phyllis.

Phyllis has had her eyes on murder prior to meeting Walter, killing her now husband’s first wife in order to get money and what she wanted. Money has been a motivator for the both of her murders, and she is very aware that she is “rotten to the heart” before her death. Without Walter, Lola would be the one to get the money if Mr. Dietrichson had ever died instead of herself.

Walter has a big ego, with an even bigger desire for showing it off and finding what he wants in drinking and women. Since he already had beer, he wanted Phyllis next, telling her she’d help kill her husband once she had come to his apartment, since it would mean that he’d have her instead of Mr. Dietrichson.

The fate is played out when we can hear Walter attempting to push away Phyllis once she brought up murder saying that he, let her have it, straight between the eyes. She didn’t fool [him] for a minute, not this time. [He] knew [he] had ahold of a red hot poker, and the time to drop it was before it burned my hand off. [He] was all twisted up inside and [he] was still holding on to that red-hot poker.” Why didn’t he drop it then, get away from Phyllis while he could? “And right then it came over me that I hadn’t walked out on anything at all, that the hope was too strong, that this wasn’t the end between her and me. It was only the beginning.” He knew their lives had been leading up to them meeting, and there was no way for his to escape, no matter how hard he tried to pull away. He and Phyllis went through with a fated murder “straight down the line.”

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