Neff's Depiction Of Double Indemnity In The Film

Through a Marxist’s eyes, Death of a Salesman represents the struggle of middle-class families in a capitalistic world. From an early age, kids are taught to do well in school, be involved with sports and activities, and to go on to college; all in hopes of achieving the American Dream. This dream of obtaining success through hard work leads many into the

In The Painted Door, the setting is a small farm which supports a man named John and his wife, Ann. The farm on which they live is rather desolate as they are not in a very close proximity to any of their neighbours and are often secluded to their house during the winter seasons with their only interactions being a game of cards with their neighbour, Steven. This scenario in which these two live can be reflected by the environment around them. The story takes place in the midst of a tremendous blizzard, the blizzard is so powerful that Ann can’t walk outside without being pushed over by the wind. This snow covered abyss exemplifies how alone the couple is. The darkness and literal isolation from the rest of the world are clear indicators of this. The dark and cold also represents how Ann views her relationship with John. She yearns for his affection and his attention, but despite these needs all John ever does is work. He works himself to the bone so that Ann can be comfortable with her place in life failing to realize that all she’s ever wanted was affection and company, which she eventually finds in Steven. The Lamp At Noon also makes good use of its setting to help develop the themes as well as the marriage of this story’s couple, Paul and Ellen. The setting of this story is a dried up farm where no crops grow. The whole farm is shrouded in a cloud of dust and wind. The dust fills the air of Paul and Ellen’s house completely smothering everything with dust. Ellen, coming from a richer household, urges Paul to leave believing that they have no future here and that the crops will never grow again. Ellen left a life of comfort and luxury for a dusty, decrepit farm, resulting in feelings of isolation, anger and hopelessness. However, Paul is determined to stay and live off the land, he has faith that the crops will grow and their farm will be prosperous once more. This is

"Although there was evening brightness showing through the windows of the bunkhouse, inside it was dust". This shows that the light tries to get in but never manages to penetrate the darkness. This is important to the themes of the story because workers' hope for a future farm is just like the light while the cruel reality is like the darkness. Their efforts to realize this plan is just like the light trying to penetrate the darkness, but their dream

| John Steinbeck uses a great amount of description in this text. With this description, the reader is able to visualize what the bunk houses look like on the outside and on the inside. It

The text is very descriptive and loaded with symbols. The author takes the opportunity to relate elements of setting with symbols with meanings beyond the first reading’s impressions. The house that the characters rent for the summer as well as the surrounding scenery are introduced right from the beginning. It is an isolated house, situated "quite three miles from the village"(947); this location suggests an isolated environment. Because of its "colonial mansion"(946) look, and its age and state of degradation, of the house, a supernatural hypothesis is implied: the place is haunted by ghosts. This description also suggests stability, strength, power and control. It symbolizes the patriarchal oriented society of the author’s time. The image of a haunted house is curiously superimposed with light color elements of setting: a "delicious garden"(947), "velvet meadows"(950), "old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees"(948) suggest bright green. The room has "air and sunshine galore"(947), the garden is "large and shady"(947) and has "deep-shaded arbors"(948). The unclean yellow of the wallpaper is

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

Also, ‘the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows’, this represents that the little hope in the bunk house only helps to further illuminate the darkness and harshness of society. In a setting, such as the ranch, where dreams are suppressed and suffocated, they take on a greater importance and significance to the mens lives, they rely on the dreams to get by.

James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity is a typically literary work of roman noir genre, adapted for a film later. The story itself is about a premeditated murder planned by the married femme fatale Phyllis Nirdlinger and her secret lover Walter Huff, specifically consistent with roman noir genre. Phyllis Nirdlinger is a typical femme fatale in this novel. She seduces the insurance agent Huff regardless of her own husband. For example, “She pulled me to her and kissed back” (Cain ch2), “I liked you all the time” (Cain ch2) and many other flirty words in the novel. What’s worse, in order to capture the money from her husband, she manages to kill him with Huff. Sex and money, as the main themes of roman noir genre, are the two main motifs of this novel as well. The story happens in Glendale of California (Cain ch1), which is explained in the very beginning of the novel. This kind of setting implies its specific roman noir genre convention. “A dark railroad track in the middle of the night... a dirty road...vacant lots” (Cain ch7). The description of the surrounding environment of the railroad track has the clarified mark of roman noir genre. The ending of Double Indemnity is a huge misery. Huff could not get rid of the nightmare after cruelly killing Mr. Nirdlinger, psychologically ill. In the same time, he has large divergence with his lover Mrs. Nirdlinger. Their intimate relationship breaks up. Finally Huff commits a suicide with his lover after his crime being discovered. The

After being crushed with deep sorrow over the death of his beloved Ligeia, the narrator moves into a decaying abbey to leave behind his lonesome house. Although he leaves the exterior of the house untouched, the narrator decorates the interior with strange but lavish furniture. “The furnishings take on the shapes and colors of his fantastic dreams” as he attempts to cope with his loss (Kincheloe). This supports the idea that the narrator would rather live in his own colorful fantasy (like the inside of his house), than engage in the dark reality (as represented by the outside of the house). Losing Ligeia meant the narrator lost his fulfillment in life; which is why his reality is now gloomy and undesirable. Not only does is the furniture an example of dream imagery, the walls of the desolate house also have a dream effect. The moving images on the walls cause the house itself to seem restless and alive. The narrator imagines this because it represents himself; always on the edge of monstrosity with each changing mood. As he hallucinates on opium, his sense of reality and fantasy is put together as one. With each furnishing, a looming memory of Ligeia haunts him as he reminances her during his opium dreams.

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

A person’s home should be more than a place to shelter them from the elements. It should be a place where one could express him/her self freely and not have to worry about any harm coming to them. In the play Trifles Mrs. Wright lived in a house that was anything but calm. In block eleven,

The play is based towards the end of the 19th century during the winter season in a traditional rural America farming town. The setting is "the kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright" where "signs of incompleted works" (Glaspell, 1916, p. 5) appear as "signs of incompetent" housekeeping to the men but as signs "of a disturbed consciousness" to the women (Noe, 1995, p. 39). The kitchen is described as

  In the play, descriptive language teaches the audience more about the surroundings than what the characters are actually saying to one another.  "I've not been in this house--it's more than a year" (6), Mrs. Hale tells the county attorney.  It is a very run down house, and the audience discovers there are no signs of anyone really ever being happy.  The kitchen is dirty, and the women begin to feel uneasy about being in a house where there is nothing but darkness and coldness.  The darkness is to signify how alone and empty Mrs. Wright was feeling while living with her husband.  Mrs. Wright did not feel wanted, and she felt like all hope was lost which the audience recognizes with the help of Mrs. Hale's saying, "...he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters.  Just to pass the time of day with him.  Like a raw wind that gets to the bone" (11).  Mrs. Hale conveys these important details to Mrs. Peters, which proves that the environment in the Wright house was dark and dreary.  The audience can imagine living in house where there is nothing but solitude and misery.  The solemn atmosphere makes the readers start to understand how lonely and depressing living in the house actually was.

‘Double Indemnity’ directed by Billy Wilder conforms to the Noir style. ‘Double Indemnity’ is widely believed to be one of the original Noir style films that used and started many of the Noir clichés that we know today. It is part of the Noir style because of the techniques and stylistics utilized in the film that are typical to that of most Noir films. These stylistics are explained by Paul Schrader, in “Notes on Film Noir” (1972), he writes about the stylistics that must occur when considering films of the Noir style. These stylistics are used to create a formula for all Noir films, and out of the seven stylistics about characterisation, lighting and structure only one does not feature in ‘Double Indemnity’. Also, characters in ‘Double Indemnity’ are typical of Noir films that being the ‘hard-boiled hero’ and ‘femme fatale’ this adds to the reason for it to be under the Noir