ABSTRACT
The paper commences with an admission that its title has been used before, perhaps by several people – but certainly, to my knowledge, by Gilbert Adair for the title of his book The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice: Reflections on Culture in the 1990s.2 However, the borrowing for this paper has less to do with Adair’s book than the 1930s novel by James Cain The Postman Always Rings Twice, which was adapted to film in both 1946 and 1981.3 The meaning of the book’s title remained a mystery and a point of speculation until Cain eventually proffered an explanation. Cain suffered from anxiety when waiting for news of a publisher’s decision on his manuscripts. So much so that he would go into the back garden to avoid hearing the arrival of the postman. However, the strategy often failed as the postman would sometimes come back a second time, by then Cain had re-entered the house and was able to hear the second ring of the doorbell and subsequently have to face the news. I won’t go into the allegorical linkage of this tale to the film title and plotline but rather mention the relevance to the present paper.
