Duel by Richard Matheson
"Duel" by Richard Matheson is a suspenseful short story that explores the psychological tension between an ordinary man and a menacing truck driver. The narrative follows Mann, a middle-aged traveling salesperson, who encounters an aggressive truck on a desolate two-lane highway as he rushes to meet an appointment in San Francisco. After a series of escalating confrontations, Mann realizes that the truck driver has taken his actions as a personal challenge, leading to a dangerous game of cat and mouse. As the situation intensifies, Mann experiences a range of emotions—from confusion and irritation to fear and rage—as he tries to outmaneuver the relentless truck.
The story is marked by three significant turning points that showcase Mann's transformation from a passive participant to an active player in this life-threatening duel. Ultimately, after a harrowing chase, Mann is forced to confront his deepest fears and instincts, culminating in a dramatic climax where he narrowly escapes the truck's deadly pursuit. The tale raises questions about human nature and the instinct for survival, as Mann's journey reflects the struggle against an unseen adversary and the unexpected resilience one can discover in moments of crisis.
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Duel by Richard Matheson
First published: 1971
Type of plot: Allegory
Time of work: The 1960's or the early 1970's
Locale: A highway to San Francisco, California
Principal Characters:
Mann , a middle-aged traveling salespersonKeller , a truck driver
The Story
"Duel" is based on a simple but provocative premise: What if an ordinary man, a salesperson, were driving along a highway minding his own business when a truck driver, for no discernible reason, suddenly challenged him to a duel of machines? The task the author poses for himself is to develop fully the potential of this premise, to dramatize its limited but exciting and suspenseful narrative possibilities.
Heading west on a two-lane highway through the mountains, Mann, a middle-aged traveling salesperson, sees very few vehicles. Because he must maintain his routine speed of fifty-five miles per hour if he is to keep his appointment in San Francisco, he casually passes a truck that is pulling a gasoline trailer. This action somehow sets off a hostile response in the faceless truck driver. The truck passes him, Mann passes the truck, it passes him again, and he begins to realize that an unusual situation has developed, one the truck driver intends to control. An intricate series of actions and reactions ensues, with Mann's own emotions escalating from bewilderment to mild irritation to ordinary anger to mortal fear to combative rage.
There are three major turning points in the narrative. As he climbs a steep grade, Mann is able to pass the truck, but he blares his horn derisively. Soothed by a reverie about his wife and children, with music on the car radio as background, he settles into the delusion that the incident is over. However, on the steep, curving downgrade, the ugly, square truck tries to ram him from behind, and Mann realizes that the driver intends to kill him.
The second turning point comes when Mann decides to evade the truck by pulling over into the lot in front of Chuck's Cafe, and to placate the driver, who may or may not have entered the café while Mann was trying to calm himself with rationalizations in the rest room. Back on the highway, however, the truck resumes its deadly game, stopping and starting and blocking the highway in response to Mann's evasive maneuvers.
Mann's impulsive decision to outrun the truck and his indulgent joy in the race is the third turning point. In this pastoral setting, he is forced to accept the fact that he cannot withdraw from this duel. Two emotions new to his experience—uncontrollable rage and terror of imminent death—enable him to draw on resources that he had not known he had. His overheated car having barely made it to the crest of a steep grade ahead of the truck, he must elude his opponent on the steep downgrade. When the motor fails, he makes a sudden turn onto a side road, timed so that if the truck driver surrenders to an instinct to follow, he will lose control. When the truck disappears from his rearview mirror, Mann stops, gets out of his car, and walks back down the road just in time to see the truck crash in a ravine and explode. Mann looks down, too stunned to feel anything. Then he cries exultantly, like a beast over his defeated prey.