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 transcend the physical. Medlock, who builds his body into an almost indestructible shield, excels as an outdoor sportsman, always in search of mental and physical perfection. Joel Cahill, on the other hand, achieves the immortal perfection by inhabiting the minds of others. His disappearance before Alnilam even opens secures his future existence in the memories of the other young airmen at the base.

Ed Gentry and Frank Cahill undergo changes through certain tests. To pass the attendant challenges of the river and the air, Gentry and Cahill must connect with living, natural forces that will alter their lives. Each man instinctively and purposely creates an emotional bridge between himself and nature that transcends reason, effecting a change in the two mythical heroes such that subsequently there is an appreciation of life. Finally, life has renewed consequence for each man.

Gentry's and Cahill's tests are phases of the mythic hero's passage detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. The hero's quest, the rites de passage, includes a departure, an initiation, and a return. In the departure, the hero abandons his membership in society and embarks on a journey that draws him into a relationship with mysterious forces: “No matter what the stage … of life, the call rings up the curtain, always on a mystery of transfiguration—a rite, or moment of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a rebirth” (Campbell 51). This summons may be denied originally; however, in order to complete his passage the hero must shed his ego, becoming newly available to the world. To avoid self-disintegration, the heroic figure responds to his calling by turning inside himself in order “to be born again” (Campbell 91), ultimately permitting renewed consequentiality into his life. Rebirth signals the crossing of the first threshold when “the hero moves in a dream landscape … where he must survive a succession of trials” (Campbell 97).

The initiation that both Gentry and Cahill undergo is a readjustment of the hero's emotions with a consequent gain of freedom over fear. As Campbell states, “This is the release potential … which anyone can attain—through herohood” (151). The hero, a potentially superior man, crosses many thresholds in order to transcend limitations, which restrain a character's development, and establish spiritual growth. In the tests that challenge the hero's temperament, timing is crucial because changes cannot occur until the individual has proven himself worthy.

The return of the hero “from the mystic realm into the land of common day” (Campbell 216) allows for renewed humanity. At times the hero finds leaving the bliss of his new-found world difficult; however, he soon discovers “the two worlds, the divine and the human … are actually one” (217). The mythological is merely an extension of the human realm and only those capable of such unity may touch the divine. By virtue of their survival, Gentry and Cahill are heroes who have discovered this sense of unification that allows for a redefined reality.

Gentry's heroic journey in Deliverance, for instance, details his passage from American suburbia to turbulent waters over a period of three days and depicts his rediscovery of self. Life has become routine, and he feels at times his job as art director at Emerson-Gentry has more control over him than he has over it: “It seemed like everything just went right by me,” Gentry thinks, “nothing mattered at all. I couldn't have cared less about anything or anybody” (Deliverance 27). His existence lacks consequence; he is simply a “get-through-the-day man” (41). Medlock, who plays at being a survivalist and believes himself equal to if not stronger than anything, provides the break through the monotony in Gentry's life. He devises a canoe trip to test physical restrictions and Gentry, compliant, goes along.

On the morning of September 15, Gentry doubts his intentions of joining the trip, a condition typical of the mythic hero: “The routine I was used to pulled at me,” he thinks; and yet, “something in me rose daringly above it, full of fear and feeling weak and incompetent but excited” (26). Medlock assures Gentry that his body has immeasurable power and that, when called upon, it will prove to be a great asset: “It's what you can make it do … and what it'll do for you when you don't even know what's needed” (29). By allowing Gentry into his confidence, Medlock has accepted him as a sort of personal disciple.

The hero myth stresses, as does Deliverance, the use of the body as a means toward survival. For Gentry, the river embodies such a test. In a canoe, however, Gentry is uncertain as to how to govern the river's current. He fumbles with his paddle and consequently loses the canoe's balance. Yet after several hours and a few beers, he develops a feel for the water and instinctively settles into a “good motion” (73). This feeling matures into a deeper understanding comparable to Frank Cahill's sixth sense regarding the air in Alnilam. For example, Gentry is able to forecast the river's lack of drive, patterns in speed, and the location of falls, rapids, and curves. This “terrifyingly enjoyable” (145) union with the river, that differentiates Gentry from Medlock because of the connection made with a living, natural force, qualifies him as a participant in the mythic hero's journey.

Gentry's designation as the hero in passage takes place as the men emerge from a canoe spill; Drew Ballinger, another participant on the journey, is found to be missing, and Medlock has fractured his leg. Recognizing Gentry's superiority as hero, Medlock whispers hoarsely to him: “It's you. It's got to be you” (150). As such, Gentry initiates an escape the next morning. Prior to departure, he will have climbed the gorge looming over them to abduct and kill Ballinger's murderer.

The cliff converts Gentry's trip into a passage of the hero. The juxtaposition of man and force, displayed by Gentry's connection with the gorge, is the second phase of the rites of passage. In order to determine the cliff's power, Gentry walks to its gorge side and places his hand onto the cliff's earth, believing, “I might be able to feel what the whole cliff was like, the whole problem, and hold it in my palm” (160-161). The climb lasts the entire night as Gentry journeys from one foothold to the next. Utterly uncovered to the night, he perceives his nakedness as an exposure to death, aware that his losing grip would signal a fall. Thus, he concentrates all his efforts into “becoming ultrasensitive to the cliff” (163). Knowing the rock wall as fervently as he knew the river is obligatory to Gentry's survival: “I turned back into the cliff and leaned my mouth against it, feeling all the way out through my nerves and muscles exactly how I had possession of the wall at four random points in a way that held the whole thing together” (163). This intimacy, almost sexual, Gentry shares with the cliff elates him: “My heart expanded with joy at the thought of where I was going and what I was doing” (161). Medlock's belief that the body, when summoned, will perform beyond ordinary expectations proves accurate, for Gentry is held “in the air by pure will” (165). Dickey has recently asserted, “I see illusion in the world as one of the basic motivating factors in it” (Letter). The illusion of Gentry's actual penetration with the cliff is necessary because it permits a sense of consequentiality.

The final section of Deliverance, entitled “After,” presents Gentry's rebirth as a Christ-like hero rising again on the third day. With his beard, he appears haggard, but his emotions are enhanced due to his connection to death in the water and on the cliff. This connection has resulted in Gentry's appreciation for life: “The river underlies … everything I do. It is always finding a way to serve me, from my archery to some of my recent ads and to the new colleagues I have been attempting for my friends” (275-276). For Gentry, life has renewed consequence. He is the mythic hero of the story because of his departure from his home, his connection to an elemental force, and his return as an altered man. Commenting in an interview, Dickey notes: “If there's any literary or mythological precedent for Deliverance, it comes from a review … by Stanley Edgar Hyman on a number of books on myths and rituals, and he quotes Van Gennep's ‘rites de passage’ and cites ‘a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return’” (Arnett 295). Thus, Gentry's mythological passage to heroism seems reinforced.

Like Deliverance, Alnilam depicts a character's entrance into a new world where life-enhancing powers permit larger understanding. Frank Cahill's journey exemplifies the three steps in the mythic hero's passage in a more complex way than does Ed Gentry's journey. The three days of the canoe trip clearly define the hero's withdrawal, penetration, and return in Deliverance; however, the separation of these stages is less clear in Alnilam. Cahill's blindness, caused by diabetes, represents a new world, and the realm he eventually enters is the air. “The air itself,” claims Dickey, is “the real protagonist” (Letter). Cahill's devotion to his swimming pool and its refinement, as later to his seeing-eye dog, Zack, provide him with a connection to the world, but they do not satisfy the need for meaning in his life.

Consequentiality, a vital part of the hero-myth, is necessary for Cahill to acquire a renewed existence. Capturing knowledge about the disappearance of his twenty year-old son, Joel, provides a purpose in the elder Cahill's life. After travelling to Peckover, North Carolina, he begins to perceive his son as an extraordinary individual through the eyes of others at the base where Joel trained. A navigator recalls Joel's characteristic instinctiveness: “When I came to this place a couple of months ago, … your boy … described the inner feeling of all things working for you, according to a mystery. … Cadet Cahill was not exactly on to something, but he was getting on to something. … Things seemed to come together for him” (Alnilam 153-154). Followers of the younger Cahill's beliefs, who refer to themselves as Alnilam, are distraught about Joel's untimely death; however, they perceive Cahill's blindness as a degree of instinct and decide to initiate him into their membership.

The initiation process, several tests that grade Cahill's intuition, are phases of the mythic hero's initiation. Alnilam's objective is to control the air surrounding an aircraft, to travel with the air. Knowledge of that element lends an understanding of the meaning of life for them: “Your principle of order comes back … and if you keep hold of yourself, the order holds up” (216). In Alnilam, Cahill must penetrate the air and make it move with him: “An airplane is … like … a bird, a big one. … You're ridin' it, and it feels everything, up, down, and to the sides. It feels everything that's in the thing it's in, the air, and you feel it through the plane. The air is different from the ground. The way you move is so different. … It's personal” (138). Connection is the second stage of the hero's rite of passage.

Cahill's nature, like Gentry's, enables him to enter the second passage of the mythic hero: Initiation. Cahill must connect with an element of power, in this instance, air. The Alnilam group realizes that air provides “complete knowledge” (311); to know air intimately offers a man superhuman characteristics. Thus, Cahill and the frenzied young men of Alnilam want to test this conclusion. In a Link Trainer, where simulation of an aircraft's flight patterns is provided, Cahill is instructed to act as pilot. The machine's illusion allows Cahill momentarily to touch the divine, as he feels himself “coming to a point, of penetrating, as if flowing upon some river” (337). Two pilots on the base, Captain Faulstick and Captain Whitehall, who flew in wars bringing each close to death, emphasize the all-powerful knowledge of air. Faulstick comments that, even in combat, one may experience an intimacy with the air: “It's private. … It stays with me. … I'm just left with it; that's all. I'll die seeing it” (211). Flight also alters Whitehall: “I don't feel closed in nearly so much anymore. … Maybe that's one reason you don't think about death when you're on a mission, except your own, and the main feeling when you're on the way back in life; it's a life feeling” (216-217).

The return of the mythic hero becomes a needed, culminating connection that alters him in some way, and it is predicted that Cahill will return rejuvenated: “And one big thing you're gonna get. … It'll come to you. … It'll go on with you, all the way till you die” (283). A part of this return is his final test, piloting an actual airplane called a Stearman. During the flight, kept secret by the Alnilam group, Cahill is given directions on how to fly by a civilian instructor, McClintock McCaig. Anxious at first as to direction, eventually Cahill levels the Stearman accurately thousands of feet above the ground. He refers to his instinct to handle such power as “distance-hearing”: “His distance-hearing—or instinct, sixth sense, or something else—developed further. … This was the thing he sought” (489-490). Almost instantly, however, the plane has possession of Cahill: “I've got this thing now,” (492) he thinks; “Cahill started for the fire, calling. … [He] climbed and screamed … with tremendous muscular strength, and unguessed energy, a vision worth the pain” (495). After the penetration and recovery of the plane, Cahill is brought closer to death and, ironically, to life.

Leaving the experience, Cahill returns to his life as he knew it before the connection, the moment signifying the return of the mythic hero. Not surprisingly, he is now able to identify with people, despite the tragic death of his dog during a parade and air show. In contrast to Cahill's beginning journey, where his sole companion is Zack, he now innately needs people in his life. As Dickey notes, “Frank Cahill is different at the end of Alnilam; not greatly different—he still has his iron will and his truculence—but changed in some essential ways. This is partly shown by the fact that he does not plan to get another dog. … It is also signified by the fact that he wants to take Hannah with him, and establish some kind of life with her, though they are both seriously impaired. … He is a little more humanized, and less fanatical, and because of this he may possibly come to understand his enigmatic son in ways not possible before” (Letter). Cahill, like Gentry, transforms himself into a force as mysterious as the force made in his connection.

Dickey's heroes, Ed Gentry and Frank Cahill, surpass ordinary men because they have escaped ordinary life. Their lives are enriched from a sense of consequence, the establishment of significance and meaning. Beyond the boundaries of society and upon his return, a man's psychological make-up is transformed into that of an heroic individual. This journey marks the moment of deliverance for a man. And in that one moment lives possibility.

Works Cited

Arnett, David L. “An Interview With James Dickey.” Contemporary Literature 16. Summer 1975: 286-300.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968.

Dickey, James. Alnilam. Garden City: Doubleday, 1987.

———. Deliverance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.

———. Letter received by author. 26 October 1989.