30 pages • 1 hour read
Eudora WeltyDeath of a Traveling Salesman
Fiction | Short Story | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Driving
Driving represents a path sought but not discovered. As Bowman drives, he feels disoriented: “he seemed to be going the wrong way—it was as if he were going back” (108). Although he expects the drive to be along a “graveled road,” he finds himself driving along a “cow trail” without knowing if or when he took a wrong turn (109). The sense of heading somewhere specific suggests a quest of some kind, and because this is Bowman’s first day back at work after having the flu, his most immediate quest is to sell shoes. A spiritual quest, however, is implicit.
Unsure if he’s going the right way—even if he’s on the right road—Bowman is disoriented; symbolically, he’s lost his sense of spiritual direction, unsure of a remedy for his loneliness. Bowman’s isolation permeates his perspective as he sees people far off in the fields and believes they look inhuman, like “leaning sticks or weeds” (109). And as he continues along this path not meant for cars—where “no car had been” (109)—he suddenly finds himself on the edge of a ravine. Bowman oddly and quietly steps out of the car, and it falls into grapevines. This dead-end trip signifies that the path Bowman thought was valuable—a quest for sales, for profit—is futile. There is nothing of meaning at the end of this path, only a drop-off with emptiness beneath; the theme of the solitary figure of modern life is a warning against worshiping the money-making, busy-body trends of commercialization.
Bowman’s Heart
Bowman’s heart symbolizes a deepening societal schism between traditionalism and modernization. Where traditionalism, specifically in the middle-class white American South, was associated with a lifestyle of tending to the land, staying close to home, and being an active member in the community, modernization posed an opposite way of living. In Welty’s context, a modern life prioritizes work and profit; work may take time away from one’s community and family, and travel may mean physically being elsewhere for long stretches. Bowman’s illness—specifically, his ever-increasing heart palpitations leading to his death—symbolically suggests the modern career person’s life is misled, having strayed from important values.
Light and Warmth
Light and warmth are a motif throughout the story, particularly in relation to Sonny and his wife. Much of the story’s imagery—the lamp the woman half cleans, the yellow furniture in the home, and the fire in the hearth—surpasses the literal meaning of the story and becomes a symbolic commentary on family, community, and love. When Bowman enters the home with the woman, before he knows that she is married to Sonny and expecting a child, “the darkness of the house touched him” (111). There are hints of yellow—”a chair of yellow cowhide seat” and “the gloom of yellow pine boards” (111)—but, as the word gloom indicates, the general mood of the space and interaction is dim. However, when Sonny returns and Bowman realizes that he and the woman are married, that there is “the ancient communication between two people” in the home (117), the yellow pieces are lifted by an overall brightness. Sonny, whose name evokes the sun, heads out to retrieve Bowman’s car from the ravine, and “sunlight touched the furthest pot on the hearth” (114)—though it is later in the day, bright sunshine streams into the home. Later at night, Sonny goes out to “borry some fire” (115) from a neighbor and returns with “a burning stick […] fire flowing in his wake, blazing light into the corners of the room” (115). It is here, with greater light and warmth in the home, that Bowman can see the woman is young and pregnant—and he realizes that he is in the home of a family. The realization overwhelms him emotionally and physically; with light and warmth radiating in the house, Bowman confronts the effects of living a solitary life, one that looks particularly bleak held up against the light.
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By Eudora Welty
