Deliverance by James Dickey

Published 1970 · 151 pages · 82,452 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Thriller & Suspense

How hard is Deliverance to read?

Deliverance scores 69 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 68 out of 100
James Dickey employs a rich and precise vocabulary, particularly in his detailed descriptions of nature, human physicality, and emotional states, using words like 'capricious,' 'tenacious,' 'paraphernalia,' 'affable,' 'hackwork,' 'mulchy,' 'slithered,' 'sogged,' 'twilled,' and 'transfiguring.' While not as dense with archaic or invented terms as *Moby-Dick* (72) or *Ulysses* (95), the prose elevates beyond common contemporary fiction, aligning closer to *2666* (65) in its literary demands.
Sentence structure: 72 out of 100
The novel features frequent long, complex sentences with multiple clauses and parenthetical asides, often extending for several lines to capture nuanced observations or internal monologues, such as the narrator's detailed climbing experience. While it lacks the extreme unpunctuated passages of *Ulysses* (98) or the thousand-word sentences of *Absalom, Absalom!* (85), the sustained length and intricate structure place it significantly above *The Great Gatsby* (52) in grammatical demands.
Abstraction: 60 out of 100
While primarily a concrete narrative of a harrowing canoe trip, *Deliverance* frequently interweaves philosophical reflections on man's relationship with nature, civilization, and primal instincts, as seen in Lewis's survivalist theories or Ed's internal struggles with fear and identity. These abstract musings are grounded in the immediate physical reality, making it less purely philosophical than *Waiting for Godot* (85) but more probing than *The Great Gatsby* (58) or *Remains of the Day* (50).
Information density: 65 out of 100
The text maintains a high information density through its detailed sensory descriptions, psychological insights, and rapid shifts between external action and internal thought, requiring sustained reader attention. The narrative layers character development, thematic exploration, and foreshadowing within seemingly simple events, creating a richer texture than *Lolita* (65) but without the encyclopedic references or multiple plotlines of *War and Peace* (80).
Narrative indirection: 70 out of 100
The first-person narration by Ed Gentry requires readers to infer much of the psychological and moral meaning, as Ed often rationalizes or struggles to articulate the full impact of events. His internal monologues, such as his recurring vision of the 'gold eye' and his shifting self-perception from 'get-through-the-day man' to a killer, demand active interpretation beyond direct statements. This places it significantly higher than direct narratives like '1984' (35), aligning more with the inferential demands of 'The Great Gatsby' (65) or 'Lolita' (72) due to the narrator's bias and unreliability.
Symbolic density: 80 out of 100
Deliverance is rich with pervasive symbolism, where nearly every major element carries meaning beyond its literal presence. The river symbolizes a primal force and a journey into the unknown, the wilderness represents a stripping away of civilization, and the bow and arrow signify a return to primal survival. The recurring 'gold eye' motif, appearing in both the model and Ed's sexual encounter with Martha, strongly links his domestic and wild desires, making the text operate on multiple layers of meaning akin to 'The Great Gatsby' (75) but with a more intense and integrated symbolic landscape.
Ironic distance: 75 out of 100
A significant ironic distance exists between Ed Gentry's self-perception and the reader's understanding of his actions and motivations. His attempts to frame the brutal events as a 'game' or a necessary transformation, coupled with his rationalizations for murder and concealment, create a deep chasm between his narrative and the implied authorial critique of modern masculinity and civilization. This unreliability and the simultaneous critique and sympathy evoked are comparable to 'Lolita' (75) or 'The Great Gatsby' (70), where the narrator's charm or bias shapes everything.
Resolution withholding: 70 out of 100
While the immediate plot of escaping the wilderness and covering up the murder is resolved, the novel deliberately withholds psychological and moral closure for the characters. The ending emphasizes that the men are forever changed by their experience, carrying the 'unsolved things' of the river with them, leaving the reader to grapple with the lasting implications of their actions. This open-endedness regarding the characters' internal states and the moral ambiguity of their survival is more profound than 'Beloved' (40) and aligns with the open meaning of 'The Great Gatsby' (60) or 'Lolita' (65).
Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
The novel primarily employs a linear, first-person narrative from Ed Gentry's perspective, without significant shifts in point of view or highly experimental formal structures. Its complexity stems mainly from Ed's internal monologues, which include flashbacks to past events (e.g., Lewis's broken ankle, Ed's Christmas party incident) and dreamlike sequences, rather than fragmented chronology or multiple narrative threads. This is more complex than a purely linear romance (28) but less so than works with multiple timelines or interweaving perspectives like 'Midnight's Children' (68), making it comparable to 'The Great Gatsby' (55) with its retrospective narration.

How Deliverance is regarded

Deliverance holds a literary regard score of 68 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Prizes

Where Deliverance sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (146 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Deliverance scores 70 out of 100. A second mythos, romance, pulls at it with a weight of 0.3. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
I am a get-through-the-day man. I don’t think I was ever anything else.
Symbol: Mythical (archetypal)
What a view, I said again. The river was blank and mindless with beauty.
Mythos: Irony iv (Tragic Pathos) (irony iv)
I had a friend there who in a way had died for me, and my enemy was there.
Genre: Romance + Confession
The river and everything I remembered about it became a possession to me, a personal, private possession, as nothing else in my life ever had.

Where the story of Deliverance takes place

  • Cahulawassee River and north Georgia hills, mid-September weekend, late 1960s (1967 to 1970), the main setting
  • Atlanta suburbs and the Emerson-Gentry studio, late 1960s (1967 to 1970)

5 things that are true of Deliverance, with the passage for each

  1. Lewis tells the others the Aintry dam will drown the river valley the following spring.

    The dam at Aintry has already been started, and when it’s finished next spring the river will back up fast.

  2. Ed shoots at a deer in the fog and misses by his own admission.

    I did. A spectacular miss at fifteen yards.

  3. One of the two mountain men is killed with an arrow through the chest, fired by Lewis from the woods.

    a foot and a half of bright red arrow was shoved forward from the middle of his chest.

  4. The rope Ed uses to lower the second dead man down the cliff breaks as he descends.

    The rope broke, and we were gone.

  5. Lewis nods to confirm that Drew's head wound was a grazing gunshot.

    “Grazed,” he said.

Scenes in Deliverance that Frye would name

27 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Agon, untitled
The older man was standing with the gun barrel in his hand and no change in the stupid, advantage-taking expression of his face, and a foot and a half of bright red arrow was shoved forward from the middle of his chest. Lewis's arrow breaks the standoff at the log and begins the contest of the quest.
Point of epiphany, untitled
What a view, I said again. The river was blank and mindless with beauty. In the crevice on the cliff, Ed has a visionary moment looking down on the moonlit river.
Agon, untitled
I never saw the arrow in the air, and I don’t believe he did either, though he surely must have heard the bow twang. Ed's tree-stand shot is the book's central duel with the second mountain man.
Anagnorisis, untitled
I turned him over with a foot, and his hand moved around palm-up, still with the shape of the root. His face came clear. Ed recognizes (and cannot be sure of) the man he has killed, a mirror of himself.
Pathos, untitled
I undid his life belt and let him fall away under me. Ed's funeral rite for Drew, the sacrificed decent man, sunk with a rock and a bowstring.
Hamartia, untitled
I believed Lewis could get us out. Ed votes to hide the body, which sets in motion everything that follows.

Books that share these scenes with Deliverance

About the author

James Dickey