To get back to the Demo analogy --Martha is obviously in a similar position, at the beginning of the film, to Ken after he stops at the gardener's suggestion--but there are so many more options here! Walter represents Martha's urge to get comfortable with what she's done--Sam represents the desire to just put it all behind her (his motto is--"remember Lot's Wife?") Finally! A film in which the men stand in for aspects of a female protagonist! The drama is not in this splintering of her consciousness--it comes 17 years later when Sam's return (and his shock upon learning that the spirited woman he has loved since his childhood is a murderess!) forces Stanwyck to re-integrate these divergent (and, ultimately, irreconcilable) forms of self-love. It's no drive in the country, I'll tell ya that!