Strangers On A Train

Another of Highsmith's puns alleviates some of the tension in these chapters, which increasingly spell doom for the murderous duo. Bruno's assertion that Guy is a certain "caliber" of person undergoes a bathetic plunge when detective Gerard fires back, "The only caliber ever worth considering is the gun's" (232). Gerard's linguistic dexterity here emphasizes his position of power. He announces that it is his "twin track mind" that helps him solve such cases (243). Similarly, Gerard's omnipotence in relation to a terrified caged bird echoes the way that Bruno had held one just before he murdered Miriam. By Chapter 42, the hunter has become the hunted. 

Another inversion takes place in these chapters. When Anne announces she is pregnant, it augurs the death of Bruno, who represents the infantile part of Guy. His death by drowning is an appropriate though unexpected corollary to his alcoholism. In James Joyce's classic Modernist text, Ulysses, the sea is correlated with the unconscious. The descent into the abyss is also the penultimate stage in The Hero's Journey, as mapped by Joseph Campbell. Bruno's death ends the fatal mirroring between the two men in the same manner as the classical Narcissus, the original narcissist, who fell in love with his own reflection.