“He must get back to where he had been before”: Death as Dreamlike Phenomenon in Eudora Welty’s “Death of a Traveling Salesman”

Abstract

Eudora Welty's first published short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman" is a fascinating examination of dream, memory, and myth. Here, Welty explores two subjects that would persist throughout her career: fulfillment in human relationships and the separateness of the individual. The story presents the case of itinerant shoe salesman R.J. Bowman as he returns to the road following a debilitating bout of influenza. While he seems eager to travel once again, there are indications throughout the story that he is not yet fit for exertion. In addition, his hallucinations suggest that he may, in fact, be moving into death early in the story and imagine or contrive the events that unfold in and around the run-down “shotgun house” where the story concludes. As a result, the story creates fertile ground for interpretation of both his and Welty’s visionary creations in the context of dream analysis, archetypal contexts, and recurring myths. My paper examines the way that Welty draws upon dreams and hallucinations in framing Bowman’s journey into an archetypal human experience: passage into death. Moreover, Welty deploys Classical mythology linked to Persephone and Prometheus by creating two elusive characters that guide Bowman towards a realization about humanity that seems to escape him. The polemical ending of the story offers little hope for Bowman, finally suggesting a critique of the lonely capitalist life of a traveling salesman.