.gif)
Deliverance (novel)
Encyclopedia
Deliverance is a 1970
novel by James Dickey
, his first. It was adapted into a 1972 film by director John Boorman
. In 1998, the editors of the Modern Library
selected Deliverance as #42 on their list of the 100 best 20th-Century novels
. The novel was included on Time magazine's
list of the 100 best English-language novels
2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.
by one of the main characters, graphic artist Ed Gentry, the novel begins with four middle-aged men in a large Georgia
city planning a weekend canoe
trip down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the north Georgia wilderness. The river valley will soon be flooded by a dam to create a reservoir. Besides Ed, the protagonists are insurance salesman Bobby Trippe, soft drink executive Drew Ballinger, and landlord Lewis Medlock, an outdoorsman who is the driving force behind the canoe trip.
The men drive into the mountains with two canoes. At a gas station in a mountain hamlet, Drew gets out his guitar and plays a duet with Lonnie, a banjo-playing, mentally deficient, inbred albino boy who is apparently a musical savant
. After arranging with some local mechanics, the rough and forbidding Griner brothers, to drive the foursome's cars down to the fictitious town of Aintry, where the canoe voyage will end two days later, the men put into the river and begin their journey. After they shoot some initial rapids and the evening approaches, Ed begins to reflect on the isolation into which the group has now voyaged.
The following morning, Ed awakens early and goes hunting with his bow and arrow. Sighting a deer, he shoots but misses, later explaining to Lewis that he broke psychologically at the last moment. Lewis expresses disappointment, and Ed grows a bit irritated at his friend's survivalist mentality. After breaking camp, Ed and Bobby then set out in one of the canoes slightly ahead of Lewis and Drew. After spending a night in the camp, Bobby has changed his mind about the outing and is chafing at Lewis's directions, so Ed takes him on as a canoe partner to keep the two apart.
Later in the day, two mountain men, one of them carrying a shotgun
, step out of the woods and accost them. The men force him and Bobby into the woods, tying Ed to a tree and cutting him with his own knife
; then, in the book's most famous scene, one of the mountain men sodomizes
Bobby. Afterwards, the men untie Ed, and the other mountain man, handing his partner the shotgun, prepares to force Ed to perform oral sex
on him. At the moment of the shotgun transfer, Ed hears the twang of a bow as Lewis, hidden in the woods, shoots Ed's assailant. Ed wrestles the gun away from the other man, and watches as the shot hillbilly slowly dies.
There follows a heated discussion about what to do. Lewis wants to bury the body, arguing that if they report what has happened they might be put on trial in front of a jury consisting of the dead man's relatives. In this, he is opposed by Drew. Ed ignores Drew's pleas and sides with Lewis. The men bury the body and take to their canoes, with Ed and Drew now teamed up again. As evening begins to come on they enter a high gorge with powerful rapids, where Drew falls out of his canoe, both canoes are capsized, and Lewis emerges from the rapids with a badly broken leg.
Lewis declares that Drew was shot. Ed is less certain, but he realizes that if the mountain man is indeed at the top of the gorge, he can shoot them all if they take to the river again. Ed decides he must climb the cliff to the top of the gorge and kill the mountain man with his bow.
Ed briefs Bobby carefully about taking Lewis downriver in the remaining canoe at first light in order to avoid being shot. Ed then makes the grueling climb to the top of the gorge, climbs a tree, and waits for the rifleman. Early the following morning, a man appears, and as he spots the tree in which Ed is hidden, Ed shoots him. The rifleman fires at almost the same time, missing Ed, but knocking him from the tree. He is gored in the side by one of his own arrows as he hits the ground. He then tracks the rifleman and finds his dead body in a small clearing. He returns the body to the top of the cliff. As he does, he sees the canoe with Lewis and Bobby in it moving out into the river in the full light.
Ed then lowers the body down the cliff and descends the rope himself, but it is not long enough to reach to the bottom. As Ed climbs down it breaks; the corpse lands on rocks, but Ed is able to kick against the cliff walls and propel himself into the river. After Ed castigates Bobby for not following his plans and brushes aside his excuses, the pair weight the corpse and sink it into the deepest part of the river. Ed, Bobby, and the badly injured Lewis then continue the journey in the remaining canoe.
Below the gorge, they find Drew's body. Lewis, though in a bad way, examines his head and confirms that it had been grazed by a rifle bullet. Ed and Bobby then sink Drew's body, too, into the river, since they cannot allow medical examiners to see the wound. Ed threatens Bobby with death in order to get him to overcome his exhaustion and help. Some time later, the men arrive at Aintry, where they explain that they have suffered a canoeing accident. After a doctor stitches up Ed's wound, he and Bobby eat in a boarding house, but Ed then goes to the basement and takes a long shower in river water.
Ed and Bobby believe that they have their story straight—Lewis feigns having few memories of the "accident" and thereby escapes questioning—but then the sheriff locates a piece of the shattered canoe above the point where they claimed to have had the accident and they have to modify their story quickly. Nevertheless, one deputy sheriff grows highly suspicious of them and tells the sheriff that his brother-in-law has been missing since the weekend, believing Ed, Bobby, and Lewis to have something to do with it. Nevertheless, the sheriff lets them go, with a warning not to return to Aintry.
Ed returns to his city life, though changed, feeling a continuing connection with the river, which in reality has now ceased to exist with the dam's completion. He occasionally sees Bobby before the latter, his business failing, moves to Hawaii, but has little to do with him--"he would always look like dead weight and like screaming, and that was no good to me." Ed and his wife later buy a cabin on another dammed lake and Lewis, now with a permanent limp, buys a neighboring cottage. The novel ends by relapsing into the conventional patterns of city dwellers, almost as if nothing has changed, except for Ed's connection with the now-drowned river, which has made the rest of his conventional life tolerable.
1970 in literature
The year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published...
novel by James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
, his first. It was adapted into a 1972 film by director John Boorman
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
. In 1998, the editors of the Modern Library
Modern Library
The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
selected Deliverance as #42 on their list of the 100 best 20th-Century novels
Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels is a list of the best English-language novels of the 20th century as selected by the Modern Library. Both Modern Library and Random House USA, the parent company, are US companies. Critics have argued that this is responsible for a very American view of the greatest...
. The novel was included on Time magazine's
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
list of the 100 best English-language novels
TIME's List of the 100 Best Novels
Times List of the 100 Best Novels, is an unranked list of the 100 best novels—and 10 best graphic novels—published in the English language between 1923 and 2005. The list was compiled by Time critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo....
2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.
Plot summary
Narrated in the first personFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
by one of the main characters, graphic artist Ed Gentry, the novel begins with four middle-aged men in a large Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
city planning a weekend canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
trip down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the north Georgia wilderness. The river valley will soon be flooded by a dam to create a reservoir. Besides Ed, the protagonists are insurance salesman Bobby Trippe, soft drink executive Drew Ballinger, and landlord Lewis Medlock, an outdoorsman who is the driving force behind the canoe trip.
The men drive into the mountains with two canoes. At a gas station in a mountain hamlet, Drew gets out his guitar and plays a duet with Lonnie, a banjo-playing, mentally deficient, inbred albino boy who is apparently a musical savant
Savant
Savant may refer to:* An expert or wise person* Savant syndrome* Marilyn vos Savant* Savant publications* Doug SavantIn popular culture:* Characters in the Noble Warriors Trilogy...
. After arranging with some local mechanics, the rough and forbidding Griner brothers, to drive the foursome's cars down to the fictitious town of Aintry, where the canoe voyage will end two days later, the men put into the river and begin their journey. After they shoot some initial rapids and the evening approaches, Ed begins to reflect on the isolation into which the group has now voyaged.
The following morning, Ed awakens early and goes hunting with his bow and arrow. Sighting a deer, he shoots but misses, later explaining to Lewis that he broke psychologically at the last moment. Lewis expresses disappointment, and Ed grows a bit irritated at his friend's survivalist mentality. After breaking camp, Ed and Bobby then set out in one of the canoes slightly ahead of Lewis and Drew. After spending a night in the camp, Bobby has changed his mind about the outing and is chafing at Lewis's directions, so Ed takes him on as a canoe partner to keep the two apart.
Later in the day, two mountain men, one of them carrying a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
, step out of the woods and accost them. The men force him and Bobby into the woods, tying Ed to a tree and cutting him with his own knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
; then, in the book's most famous scene, one of the mountain men sodomizes
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
Bobby. Afterwards, the men untie Ed, and the other mountain man, handing his partner the shotgun, prepares to force Ed to perform oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
on him. At the moment of the shotgun transfer, Ed hears the twang of a bow as Lewis, hidden in the woods, shoots Ed's assailant. Ed wrestles the gun away from the other man, and watches as the shot hillbilly slowly dies.
There follows a heated discussion about what to do. Lewis wants to bury the body, arguing that if they report what has happened they might be put on trial in front of a jury consisting of the dead man's relatives. In this, he is opposed by Drew. Ed ignores Drew's pleas and sides with Lewis. The men bury the body and take to their canoes, with Ed and Drew now teamed up again. As evening begins to come on they enter a high gorge with powerful rapids, where Drew falls out of his canoe, both canoes are capsized, and Lewis emerges from the rapids with a badly broken leg.
Lewis declares that Drew was shot. Ed is less certain, but he realizes that if the mountain man is indeed at the top of the gorge, he can shoot them all if they take to the river again. Ed decides he must climb the cliff to the top of the gorge and kill the mountain man with his bow.
Ed briefs Bobby carefully about taking Lewis downriver in the remaining canoe at first light in order to avoid being shot. Ed then makes the grueling climb to the top of the gorge, climbs a tree, and waits for the rifleman. Early the following morning, a man appears, and as he spots the tree in which Ed is hidden, Ed shoots him. The rifleman fires at almost the same time, missing Ed, but knocking him from the tree. He is gored in the side by one of his own arrows as he hits the ground. He then tracks the rifleman and finds his dead body in a small clearing. He returns the body to the top of the cliff. As he does, he sees the canoe with Lewis and Bobby in it moving out into the river in the full light.
Ed then lowers the body down the cliff and descends the rope himself, but it is not long enough to reach to the bottom. As Ed climbs down it breaks; the corpse lands on rocks, but Ed is able to kick against the cliff walls and propel himself into the river. After Ed castigates Bobby for not following his plans and brushes aside his excuses, the pair weight the corpse and sink it into the deepest part of the river. Ed, Bobby, and the badly injured Lewis then continue the journey in the remaining canoe.
Below the gorge, they find Drew's body. Lewis, though in a bad way, examines his head and confirms that it had been grazed by a rifle bullet. Ed and Bobby then sink Drew's body, too, into the river, since they cannot allow medical examiners to see the wound. Ed threatens Bobby with death in order to get him to overcome his exhaustion and help. Some time later, the men arrive at Aintry, where they explain that they have suffered a canoeing accident. After a doctor stitches up Ed's wound, he and Bobby eat in a boarding house, but Ed then goes to the basement and takes a long shower in river water.
Ed and Bobby believe that they have their story straight—Lewis feigns having few memories of the "accident" and thereby escapes questioning—but then the sheriff locates a piece of the shattered canoe above the point where they claimed to have had the accident and they have to modify their story quickly. Nevertheless, one deputy sheriff grows highly suspicious of them and tells the sheriff that his brother-in-law has been missing since the weekend, believing Ed, Bobby, and Lewis to have something to do with it. Nevertheless, the sheriff lets them go, with a warning not to return to Aintry.
Ed returns to his city life, though changed, feeling a continuing connection with the river, which in reality has now ceased to exist with the dam's completion. He occasionally sees Bobby before the latter, his business failing, moves to Hawaii, but has little to do with him--"he would always look like dead weight and like screaming, and that was no good to me." Ed and his wife later buy a cabin on another dammed lake and Lewis, now with a permanent limp, buys a neighboring cottage. The novel ends by relapsing into the conventional patterns of city dwellers, almost as if nothing has changed, except for Ed's connection with the now-drowned river, which has made the rest of his conventional life tolerable.