The Postman Always Rings Twice

“She was snarling like a cougar. I liked her like that.”

Cats are a recurring symbol throughout the novel. Frank often refers to Cora as a cat, or describes her like one, because he wants to see her as the quintessential femme fatale—slinky, seductive, and dangerous.

“To me, you look more like a hell cat.”

When Cora tells Frank that Nick calls her “a little white bird,” Frank responds by calling her something violent and spiteful. Cora denies this at first, but then she admits that she might be. If she is, she claims it is because she has been driven to behaving that way by her circumstances. Frank senses Cora’s unhappiness in feeling like Nick’s precious pet.

“There’s one way.”

Cora’s suggestion to Frank that they murder Nick seems oddly understated, especially since Cain’s writing is usually overt and even aggressive at times. At no point do Frank or Cora mention the words “murder” or “kill” when they first broach the subject of slaying Nick. Instead, Cora simply alludes to the solution to their problem, and both parties know exactly what she means without further explanation. The fact that Frank doesn’t need an explanation suggests that the thought was already in his mind.

“Killed her deader than hell.”

When Frank and Cora leave the hospital after their first murder attempt, the cop who was at the diner when the lights went out joins them. The cop discovers the source of the power outage—an electrocuted cat—and repeats the above phrase four times while expressing remorse for the cat. He points out that the cat was pretty and that cats are too dumb to understand that they should avoid dangerous objects like fuse boxes. The cop’s commentary can be applied to Frank and Cora as well. They both seem unable to keep away from murder, and this ends badly for them.

“Give me half a chance, I got it on the cops, every time.”

Frank’s arrogant belief in his own power over others ends up being his downfall. He goes into most situations with the attitude that he can get away with whatever he wants simply because he often has in the past. Frank believes that his past experiences will carry him through all situations. This is one of the first examples in the novel of Frank’s hubris.

“Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.”

Cain’s signature writing style of saying a lot with few words comes through as Frank explains to Cora why they can’t take Nick’s car in order to go away together. Frank is technically correct—stealing the car would cause the cops to chase them, whereas running away together is not illegal. However, his opinion also reveals the low position women had in society at the time.

“Oh, I was good all right. The only trouble was I wasn’t quite good enough.”

Frank typically lacks awareness of his excessive self-confidence. While he almost never admits that he can be outplayed in serious matters, he does acknowledge a mistake he made in a less serious situation—losing money while playing pool. Frank’s inability to curb his own hubris is one of the reasons why he suffers a tragic fate at the end of the novel.

“‘You were going to stick a knife in him just now.’ ‘No. That was for me, Frank. Not him.’”

Once Nick brings Frank back to the diner, Frank and Cora run into each other in the kitchen at night. Frank sees Cora with a knife and immediately assumes that she intends to kill Nick with it. Here, Frank is projecting his own feelings onto her actions. His response to Cora saying that she wants to commit suicide is to reiterate that they need to kill Nick because they’ve “tried every other way out.”

“This was going to be such a lousy murder it wouldn’t even be a murder.”

Frank demonstrates his overblown belief in his own abilities by convincing himself that his previous murder attempt was wrong only because of the way he went about it. He believes that if his second murder attempt looks messy enough, it cannot look like anything but an accident.

“Because here came the echo of his voice.”

Doubling, or the recurrence of events and details, is a significant motif throughout the novel. The book’s eeriest example of doubling is when Nick’s voice echoes back to Frank and Cora right after he has been clubbed to death in the car, suggesting that the shadow of his murder will continue to follow them.

“Maybe they pin it on your for manslaughter, and you spend a year in jail.”

While discussing the possible repercussions of their second (and successful) murder attempt, Franks explains to Cora that he will be fine due to his drunkenness, but she may be convicted and jailed. As the narrator of the story, Frank tends to paint himself in the best possible light. However, Cain provides hints throughout the novel that reveal Frank’s true character, such as in this quote. Here, Frank has worked out a plan that lets him get away without any problems, but it may negatively affect the woman he supposedly loves.

“What I was afraid of was that perfect murder stuff that we cracked up on last time.”

Rather than seeing the error of his ways and realizing that murder is wrong, Frank believes that the only problem with killing Nick is trying to create a “perfect” murder in the process. He thinks that if his second murder attempt is messier, it will succeed where his first murder attempt failed. Frank’s inability to assess situations correctly gets him into further trouble.

“The cop came back and mumbled something about a blackjack.”

The cop in question is referring to blackjack (the card game), not a blackjack (a weapon). This distinction is significant because a blackjack was the weapon that Cora used to bludgeon Nick with. Frank is unconsciously revealing his own guilt and crumbling mental state in mishearing the cop, filling in a detail that has nothing to do with the present situation.

“After they had the Greek dead enough to suit them, Sackett really straightened out, and put some stuff in that meant something.”

Cain’s unique writing style is one of the reasons why his novels became so popular with contemporary audiences and why they remained relevant for years. Terse, slyly humorous, and often brutal, Cain’s language and pacing completely capture the essence of his characters. This quote is a perfect example of this phenomenon because it clearly illustrates Frank’s personality.

“When I get through, just see how smart you are. There’s just such a thing as being too smart.”

Cora calls out Frank for his arrogance, explicitly pointing out that he believes he can get away with anything. She warns him that his biggest flaw will be the end of him, and it eventually is.

“You each held a perfect hand. Because that was a perfect murder, Chambers. Maybe you don’t even know how good it was.”

Frank and Cora’s first murder attempt was supposed to be “perfect,” but it ends up being a near disaster. For their second attempt, Frank plans to make things as messy as possible, believing that focusing on the “perfect” murder was what kept the first attempt from succeeding. Given that Frank wants the second murder attempt to be convoluted, it is ironic that Katz describes it as perfect.

“[S]pecially when it’s about a guy you like as well as I liked the Greek.”

Frank admits that he never had a problem with Nick, which calls into question Frank’s character and mental state. He murders a man that he supposedly likes very much. Frank even breaks down and cries at Nick’s funeral. However, he never seems to notice any incongruity between his supposed positive feelings toward Nick and his lack of moral objection to murdering Nick.

“We had all that love, and we just cracked up under it. It’s a big airplane engine, that takes you through the sky, right up to the top of the mountain. But when you put it in a Ford, it just shakes it to pieces. That’s what we are, Frank, a couple of Fords.”

Cora sums up her and Frank’s relationship with an evocative analogy, describing how the two of them are incapable of maintaining good things in their lives. She naively believes that love is the only thing that matters, that she and Frank have it, and that it can get them through anything. Cora’s acknowledgement that she is wrong about her and Frank’s love is a turning point—for the worse—in their relationship.

“I was afraid if she got sore at me for something, she’d go off her nut and spill it like she had that other time.”

Frank has a very practical reason for wanting to skip town after he and Cora are acquitted of Nick’s murder. He believes that if Cora gets mad at him, she will go straight to Sackett and sell him out. This belief damages Frank and Cora’s relationship in two ways. First, Frank no longer trusts Cora. Second, Frank feels trapped into doing whatever Cora wants because he is afraid that she will sell him out if he doesn’t. He can no longer run from his problems as he has in the past.

“You’ve been trying to make a bum out of me ever since you’ve known me, but you’re not going to do it.”

Cora’s real motivation for wanting to kill Nick is feeling trapped by him and her desire to “be something.” As much as she tells Frank that she just wants to be with him, Cora really wants to be successful and famous. With Nick dead and the diner in her control, she finally has what she wants, and she gets upset with Frank for trying to take her away from her newfound success.

“And the tip-off was that every time I would come out of a hangover, I would be having those dreams. I would be falling, and that crack would be in my ears.”

After murdering Nick, Frank and Cora spend six months fighting about whether to stay or run away together. Frank reveals that, on some level, he is haunted by Nick’s murder, and his desire to leave is as much to escape his own subconscious guilt as it is to avoid future problems with the law.

“It came to me, then, that Nicaragua wouldn’t be quite far enough.”

Frank’s default response to most situations, particularly unfavorable ones, is running away. While on a trip to Mexico with Madge, Frank toys with the possibility of going to Nicaragua with her. However, he realizes that Nicaragua (and probably anywhere else) wouldn’t be far enough to escape Cora’s wrath and whatever legal repercussions would accompany it.

“But love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more. It’s hate.”

While Frank and Cora try to figure out what to do in the wake of Cora finding out about Madge, Frank sums up what he believes has gone wrong for them. Ever since Nick’s murder, Frank has subconsciously feared the power that Cora has over him. He hates her for trapping him in one place and feels burdened by their relationship, even though he claims to still love her.