Final Blog- The Postman Always Rings Twice

I finished reading The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain last week, but I’ve finally found some time to do my final blog today. At first, I didn’t like the book that much, but once I started to feel for the characters, I enjoyed it more. I left off in my last blog where Frank had just come back from his “vacation” with Marge. Cora does find out that he was away with her because Marge stops by the restaurant and drops off a baby puma for Frank. Cora is pretty upset about it. Then, Kennedy, the man who knows about Cora’s confession to killing the Greek, comes back to blackmail them into giving him $25,000. However, Frank beats him up and burns the evidence. Later, Cora finds out she’s pregnant with Frank’s baby. They get married, but while they’re at the beach after their wedding, Cora says, “I feel funny inside,” so Frank carries her to the car as fast as he can. They rush off to the hospital, but they get stuck behind a semi going slow. There’s a car coming in the other lane, so he tries to pass the semi on the right side of the road, but he fails to see a culvert wall. They get into a crash, and Cora dies. Frank goes to prison because everyone thinks he tried to kill Cora, so he could have her estate. The book ends with Frank finding out he’s been sentenced with the death penalty. The last few sentences of the book are, “Here they come. Father McConnell says prayers help. If you’ve got this far, send up one for me, and Cora, and make it that we’re together, wherever it is.” When I read this, I finally realized how much Frank did love Cora. I think it took so long for me to know for sure because he was such a rough character who never really talked about his true emotions and feelings. He had told Cora he loved her, but I doubted it when he went away with Marge. At the end, I knew that Cora was the only woman he had ever loved. When I think about Frank and Cora’s relationship, the first word that comes to my mind is weird. That’s because they were always so fickle about each other. They couldn’t make a decision about what to do with their lives. They were always fighting, but then they would get drunk and make up. To me, that didn’t sound like love; it just sounded like lust. Maybe it was just how Cain wrote it that made it sound like that. I also thought they were very selfish for killing the Greek just so they could be together. When I thought about it though, at that time, divorce was almost unheard of, so I’m sure that’s the only solution Frank and Cora thought they had. Now that I really think about their relationship, I know that they really loved each other. There were just many obstacles in their way, so they got frustrated and fought all the time. I feel that Frank would do just about anything for Cora if it came down to it. Even though I didn’t like their relationship at first, in the end, I really just wanted them to be together. Then Cora died, and I found out that Frank was writing the story while in prison, and I was terribly sad. I felt so awful for him, but then, when he prayed for he and Cora to be together, I thought maybe it was a good thing that they were both going to be dead, then maybe they could at least be together in the next life.