Death of a Traveling Salesman
The crucial action of “Death of a Traveling Salesman” takes place in the mind of the protagonist, a shoe company representative, in the last hours of his life.Bowman has been a traveling salesperson for fourteen years, living alone in hotels as he drives from one city to the next with his sample case of shoes.One day he falls into illne after his long traveling.But he recovers to be able to continue his work and gets lost on an unfamiliar road to Beulah where he never travels and then encounters a couple who offers him a shelter and helps him get out of his car.
He virtually realizes how lonely he is and how helple and tired he feels.It is at this moment that he has a strong sense of love and being loved and a genuine yearning for a home which only belongs to him.So he is so disappointed when he knows that the woman he gradually falls in love with has married to Sonny, and how much does he wish that the woman’s baby is his but not Sonny’s.Finally he can’t help to leave the couple’s home and dies on the road in fright as if all this has happened before.
This novel is replete with symbolic images which are employed to emphasize Bowman’s living condition and explore his psychological inner world, such as Bowman’s car, the unknown path, Sonny’s house and so on.Bowman’s Ford car is like “a boat” of his life, carrying a wanderer everywhere, even supporting his living.And the unknown path on his way is far away from the outside world which seems mysterious but serene, innocent and primitive.It is just like a bridge between reality and ideal.Only when we get out of the entrapment can we cherish the love.It is obvious that the Sonnys’ house represents a kind of love and help.Simple and plain as the house, the outside substantial life makes a great contrast to Bowman’s sophisticated society.From this plot we can seen the hope having a home and family intensely influences Bowman’s thoughts.In a word, to convey her philosophical thinking about the destiny of people living on the margins of society, Eudora Welty employs the most powerful vehicle in Southern tradition—symbolism.Added with common and lyric language, it is easier for us to understand Welty’s feeling towards the southern life.Maybe it is doomed that Bowman will die under such kind of hostile southern environment.
