In Eudora Welty's story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," the protagonist, Bowman, spends a lot of time on the road in a pretty boring and thankless job of shoe sales. He is very lonely and has no one that he is close to--no family or wife. When he meets Sonny and his woman, at first he doesn't realize what they have, but by the end of the story, he recognizes that she is pregnant and they have a fruitful, happy marriage. He envies them of this and it amplifies his utter loneliness. For Bowman, what is important to him is having someone to care for and who will care for him. He does not have this, so he steals away into the night, away from these people who have what he does not.
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