Structure

The short story “Cold Calling” by Chuck Palahniuk is structured around the main character, Bill. He is an American teenager who is working in a call center selling people cleaning mops. The plot of the story focuses on conflicts that arise from racial prejudic…

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Beginning

The short story begins in media res, in the middle of events, as we see Bill at work preparing to make a phone call to sell a cleaning mop: “The computer feeds me a Mrs. Wayne Timmons…”  (p. 125, l. 3)

The exposition is almost absent, as all we find out from the begin…

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Middle

The middle of the short story includes the rising action.

First, tension is constructed through dialogue as Bill calls a Mrs. Wayne Timmons who assumes he is calling from India or Pakistan. Tension points are marked by Bill’s anxiety about losing his job because he is spending too much time over the phone and deviating from the sales script: “Enough jogs, and the training supervisor registers a demerit. Enough demerits, and you’ll be looking for an even worse-paying job.” (p. 127, ll. 14-15); “Across the networking floor, the training supervisor looks up from her desk. Meets my eyes, her eyebrows sprung up. She points one fingernail at the digital readout on the wall…” (p. 127, ll. 26-28)

The conflict between the two characters reaches a high point as Bill almost snaps at the woman on the phone for not believing that he is calling from the US: “Into the phone I whisper, ‘Listen, lady…’ I almost yell, ‘I’m just as white as you…’ ” (p. 127, ll. 1-2). Billy's comment foreshadows his discriminatory comments at the end of the story ag…

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Ending

The story lacks any falling action, and the resolution is also short: Samantha simply leaves Bill yelling behind: “I yell, ‘My name is Bill Henderson.’ Only by now Samantha Wells is all-the-way gone.” (p. 130, ll. 23-24)

The story’s ending is open and ironical, as Bill turns out to b…