SOURCE: Brewer, Angelin P. “‘To Rise above Time’: The Mythic Hero in Dickey's Deliverance and Alnilam.” James Dickey Newsletter 7, no. 1 (fall 1990): 9-14.

In the following essay, Brewer perceives the storylines of Dickey's two novels as interpretations of the passage of the mythical hero as detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Ed Gentry and Frank Cahill, protagonists in James Dickey's novels Deliverance (1970) and Alnilam (1987), are called to make a journey. The common pattern of these journeys depicts the three steps in the mythic hero's passage: a withdrawal from the real world, a penetration to a power source, and, finally, a life-enhancing return. Completion of the journey, with its psychological and physical dangers, renders the individual heroic. Chosen by men seemingly confident of their own immortality, Lewis Medlock and Joel Cahill, respectively, Gentry and Cahill initially appear as disciples of these self-styled Christ-figures who wish to...