Deliverance

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1970

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Sleep and Dreams

Throughout the novel, Ed references sleeping and dreaming. He describes waking up from sleep on the morning of the canoe trip as coming out of a deeply submerged place, suggesting that sleep for him is a kind of death. The association between sleep and death has a long literary history and recurs throughout the novel to varying effects. For example, when Ed and Lewis set out on their trip, Lewis references their journey as leaving the “sleep of the mild people” to experience a more dynamic existence on the river (31). The remark suggests that the urban, comfortable lives that the men have been leading are not really lives at all. The trip does in fact wake them up, as it necessitates that they fight for survival. During the critical hunting scene, for instance, Ed’s half-waking state brings him near to death.

At the same time, sleep and dreams (through their association with the unconscious) are also connected to the mysterious and primal power of nature. Like other authors of the Southern Gothic, Dickey takes readers on a journey into a wild land that is often enshrouded in darkness or twilight. The river in particular is linked to sleep; Ed says that its force gives him the feeling he has when drifting off to sleep—one of dropping deeper into something. Ultimately, this journey into the primal and unconscious entails a symbolic form of death, as Ed returns from the trip a changed man.

The River and the Dam

The river provides the thread that carries the narrative structure of descent and return, with the men literally descending the river into the wilderness and returning on it to civilization—a kind of figurative rebirth through death. Throughout, it is a symbol of the raw power of nature. Dickey’s fictional Cahulawassee river is chaotic and wild. It plunges through the rapids and gorges of North Georgia. It represents nature untouched by “civilization,” and it thus represents danger and unpredictability. It tests the men and proves that they are not its equal. In this sense, it is a device for breaking the characters literally and figuratively. It destroys Lewis’s body and cures his spirit of its hubristic bent. Its natural force is perhaps what ultimately kills the fair and just Drew, whose ideals cannot survive in the wilderness. The river forever changes Ed, who assumes the leadership role in Part 4 because Lewis has been injured by the river’s force.

The dam is the other aspect of the river and represents what it will become. The dam is a symbol of human society and its impact on nature. As an architectural structure, it attempts to subdue and control the wild. As the river waters rise behind the dam, they will subdue the wild river, diffuse its power, and cover the rugged landscape. The wild river will be only a personal memory of those who have experienced it, suggesting that despite the men’s harrowing experiences, humans may ultimately prevail in The Conflict Between Humanity and Nature. However, the fact that Ed drinks from the river at the end of Part 4, taking a bit of it with him forever, complicates this “victory,” suggesting the “wildness” inherent in humanity itself.

Sexuality

Besides signifying their conventional domestic love life, Ed’s intimacy with Martha sets up one of the major motifs of the novel: sexuality. It is significant that Martha’s position during their lovemaking mirrors Bobby’s during the assault later in the narrative. Sex becomes a figurative pattern of struggle, climax, and death throughout the novel, developing themes of Conflicting Ideals of Masculinity and their relationship with raw nature. It is also associated with other motifs in the novel, including sleep and dreams, that speak to humanity’s submerged, primal instincts.

For example, while the assault on Bobby and Ed focuses on power and subjugation, the intimacy of consensual sex informs the hunting episode, the climactic scene of the novel. The wall ignites in him a kind of “blazing sexuality” that lifts him up the wall. Once Ed reaches the top of the cliff, having united with nature in a figuratively sexual union, the hunt for the man assumes a sexually intimate quality. Much as he has become intimate with the rock, Ed will now “fuse” his mind with that of the man he hunts. The hunting scene also takes place when Ed is in a state of exhaustion that places him in a dreamlike state. Ed’s stalking of man begins just before dawn, as does the bedroom scene with Martha, and Ed’s arduous climb up the rockface is reminiscent of the sensation he experiences when waking from dreams.