Death of a Traveling Salesman

“This was his first day back on the road after a long siege of influenza.”

The temporal setting—that it’s Bowman’s first day back at work after being ill—creates the external conflict of illness as he travels. It also characterizes Bowman as bull-headed, continuing to push through work even when he’s barely recovered.

“[F]or no reason, he had thought of his dead grandmother. She had been a comfortable soul. One more Bowman wished he could fall into the big feather bed that had been in her room…”

Early exposition sets up both the external and internal conflict. Bowman is disoriented because of his illness, but that disorientation has allowed his unconscious to rise to a nearly conscious level. This tension—between conscious and unconscious, external and internal—contrasts how Bowman is living against how he should be living.

“He had made the trip to Beulah before. But he had never seen this hill or this petering-out path before […]”

This line includes the third repetition of the name “Beulah,” suggesting the name’s importance; the name is an allusion to heaven. Further, this line hints at Bowman’s disorientation. He hopes he is on his way to Beulah, but he is not—hence the unfamiliarity of his surroundings. He’s never been here before.

“People standing in the fields now and then, or on top of the haystacks, had been too far away, looking like leaning sticks or weeds, turning a little at the solitary rattle of his car across the countryside […]”

The third-person omniscient narration shows how Bowman perceives others. As he drives, fellow Southerners (who, unlike him, are involved in agriculture) seem distant and unknown to Bowman—he’s a stranger in his own culture. 

“He got out quietly, as though some mischief had been done him and he had his dignity to remember. He lifted his bag and sample case out, set them down, and stood back and watched the car roll over the edge.”

This moment in which Bowman disconnectedly watches his car fall over the edge of the ravine begins the rising action of the story, and the unreal quality of his experience recalls a fever dream. The story remains ambiguous on the full nature of Bowman’s mental state, but the narrative’s subtle dreamlike atmosphere corresponds with the protagonist’s generalized uncertainty about his situation.

“He stopped still. Then all of a sudden his heart began to behave strangely. Like a rocket set off, it began to leap and expand into uneven patterns of beats which showered into his brain, and he could not think.”

There are many descriptions of Bowman’s pounding heart throughout the story, but this is the first that is so long and detailed. It comes when he approaches the woman at the house, and it is the most intense rising action since the ravine incident.

“Inside, the darkness of the house touched him like a professional hand […]. The woman set the half-cleaned lamp on a table in the center of the room […]”

This is one of the first and clearest suggestions of the motif of lightness and darkness, representing relationship and isolation, respectively. The house remains dark as these two strangers sit across from one another. The lamp is half clean, with one side able to shine and the other covered in opaque dust.

“Mr. Redmond. Mr. Redmond. That was someone who he would never encounter, and he was glad. Somehow the name did not appeal to him. […] In a flare of touchiness and anxiety, Bowman wished to avoid even mention of unknown men and their unknown farms.”

Though Mr. Redmond never appears, his name signifies the archetypal Southern farmer and neighbor, closely connected to the community. When Sonny needs to “borry fire” to warm his own house, he heads to Mr. Redmond’s farm to do so. Bowman’s aversion to the mere name shows how isolated he’s made himself.

“On the back of his light hair he had a wide filthy black hat which seemed to insult Bowman’s own. He pushed down the dogs from his chest. He was strong, with dignity and heaviness in his way of moving…”

When Sonny enters the home, he initially contrasts starkly with Bowman, establishing himself as Bowman’s foil. Sonny is physically strong, assertive, and confident—Bowman is the opposite.

“It occurred to him, and it seemed quite marvelous, that she was not really talking to him, but rather following the thing that came about with words that were unconscious and part of her looking.”

Bowman notices the woman and Sonny’s mule make eye contact for a moment, and the woman speaks under her breath to it. Unlike Bowman, she does not calculate each word as a salesman would; she simply connects—to animals as to people. It is a quick lesson in relationships for Bowman.

“But he wanted to leap up, to say to her, I have been sick and I found out then, only then, how lonely I am. Is it too late? My heart puts up a struggle inside me. […] It should be flooded with love.”

Though the woman is quiet, her mere presence elicits something from deep within Bowman. As he sits quietly with her, his inner dialogue ratchets up in intensity. This is the first time Bowman admits to himself what he really needs—love and belonging.

“These people cherished something that he could not see, they withheld some ancient promise of food and warmth and light. Between them they had a conspiracy.”

Just before Sonny brightens the home with a fire, Bowman starts to wonder if there’s something between Sonny and the woman. He notices that they seem to nurture something within one another that he has not nurtured in himself or another person. In the light of the fire, he’ll realize they’re a married couple.

“He heard breathing, round and deep, of the man and his wife in the room across the passage. And that was all. But emotion swelled patiently within him, and he wished that the child were his.”

After Bowman recognizes the couple as a family, he reaches his emotional climax, consciously wanting a child, a family. His physical symptoms rise with his emotional revelation.