Lewis 'Test Of Manhood In Deliverance'

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In Deliverance, we see four Adams. We can attribute this to the four men traveling back to the primitive time where they vow to use only knives, bows, and arrows. When the mountain men confront the four men, Lewis and the other men capture a gun and a rifle, but they do not use either. Instead they bury the shotgun with the one mountain man and throw the other in the river. Keeping the guns would give them an advantage, but they discard any ties with civilization for the sake of the test against nature. This is a test of manhood; in order for this test to have validity, the trip must have danger

Lewis, the strongest of all the men, has also been defeated but by a different force. Lewis has been defeated by nature. After Lewis broke his leg when the canoe tipped in the rapids he became dependent on the other men for assistance. This is when Lewis realizes that he can no longer lead but by virtue of the river he must follow. For Lewis this act of following was defeat. Lewis was
always the leader of the pack and could not imagine allowing himself to be humbled into asking for help. Lewis could not stand the pain of the compound fracture and his body goes into a comma. This is where Lewis was defeated.

While Bobby and Ed were held at gunpoint and being sexually assaulted and violated Lewis and Drew came upon the horrific scene. Lewis was offered a choice to protect his friends or look the other way. He chose to protect his friends by shooting an arrow at the mountain man holding the gun. The arrow hit and killed this man. Was this Justifiable homicide or murder? The law of the mountain would view this act as brave and as acceptable in order to satisfy the basic need for protection. The murder could be viewed as protecting friends or family from harm. But these four men were not from the mountain, are they required to follow the law of the state or the mountain.

The murder of the mountain man can be looked at from several sides. The protection of his friends at that point was the main focus of Lewis 's desire to shoot and kill the mountain man. Sometimes our convictions in a particular case can seem to defy all rules. Lewis saw his friends in excruciating pain, suffering at the hands of the mountain men. He felt he had to go beyond the normal judgment and break rules to stop this abuse. Nietzsche would have agreed with Lewis 's decision to shoot the man, because of his loyalty to his friends. He would have congratulated him for his courage. There were several moves open to Lewis, when faced with this problem his intuition, or particular judgment seemed to conflict with a rule. Lewis knew murder was wrong, he had two choices: reject the intuition or reject the rule. He could have tried to reconcile the two by showing the problem in question was a justifiable exception, or that the rule governing the problem applies to a different domain, class, or population than the rule with which it seemed to conflict. At that point in time Lewis felt that going to the extreme of killing the mountain man was the only course of action available to him. Aristotle believed that good judgment requires avoidance of extremes, thus he would not agree with Lewis 's decision.

Killing in self-defense could be justified, therefore, if Lewis did not intend to kill but merely protect his or his friends ' lives. The killing would then be an unintended effect. However, if Lewis chose to kill, as a means to an end, the killing would be morally wrong. Murder is viewed by society as wrong and condemned by law. Following the principle "Avoid Evil," Thomas Aquinas specifies that, "killing as a kind of evil that should be avoided". Lewis could have made other choices to stop the situation the murder could have been avoided. The natural rights theorist, John Locke, claims that persons have the right to life, liberty and property, maintaining that it is wrong to harm people by taking their lives or their property from them (Suarez, 208).

Thomas Hobbes would agree with Lewis because he said that, "people live in a state of nature, he supposed, all persons are free to do whatever they wish, without restraint of any kind, except for opposition of others. Because there is no government or social organization, there are no rules; and where there are no rules, he inferred, nothing is either right or wrong." The men made the decision based upon a democratic vote. Thus by keeping the lie, they in turn would be doing nothing wrong. We could parallel this plot to "Crito" as Lewis pleaded with the men to take the easy way out and escape the judgment of society, but Drew on the other hand pleaded just a Socrates did to stay and accept the consequences. Drew said, just as Socrates, "Two wrongs do not make a right (Wagner, 110)." At this point emotions played into the decision that the men made, the decision to keep the lie secret. Plato believed that emotions made people forget the balance of reason (Wagner, 112).

Throughout the novel, three of the characters seemed to rely on the fourth character quite a bit, the hero of the day. Though, towards the end of the novel, their hero of the day had fallen out of the 'game, ' as Lewis called it, when they needed him most. This situation proposed the scene for which the passing of the torch from the fallen hero to the newly risen, soon-to be-hero, took place. Before the four men left on their camping trip, Ed said 'I liked Lewis; I could feel myself getting caught up again in his capricious and tenacious enthusiasms that had already taken me bow-hunting and varmint-calling with him, and down into a small, miserably cold cave where there was one dead, crystalline frog. Lewis was the only man I knew who could do with his life exactly what he wanted to. ' This thought of Ed 's goes to show how much he followed and depended on Lewis. Through this thought, it seems as though the majority of the reason Ed ever did any camping or outdoor activities was because he had Lewis to back him up. (Calhoun, 129)

It also seemed that Ed was somewhat jealous of Lewis. Ed was jealous because of Lewis ' ability to do whatever he wanted, his willingness and ability to deal with the outdoors, and Lewis ' body build. Drew and Bobby also seemed to rely on Lewis quite a bit, but not even as close to as much Ed did. They were able to say 'no ' at first when the idea of the trip came up, although, later they were talked into it. Whereas with Ed, he found himself saying 'yes ' right from the get go. It was not until later, when Lewis picked him up, that Ed had second thoughts about the trip. However, even after having second thoughts, Ed was able to reason that with Lewis there, he would be okay.

On the second day of the trip, the four men came upon two 'mountain men ' who performed sodomy on Bobby. (Kellman, 43) Lewis came and killed one of the men. However, one them got away. Later that day, the four men were heading down the river. Drew was presumably shot, by the surviving mountain man, and fell out of the canoe. At this point in the story, Lewis injured his leg and started to slip into what seemed like shock. 'He thinks we can 't get at him. And if we can, we can kill him. ' Bobby says this to Ed during the evening of the second day. At this point in time, Lewis still had control over the remaining party. However, he was quickly loosing it to a more capable leader; Ed. Lewis is still making the plans at this point, which shows that he is still the leader but is delegating a good portion of the work to Ed. It is not until later in the novel when Ed takes over the leadership role in the group.

On the third day, the remaining three escaped the wrath of the surviving mountain man and were able to make it down river to Aintry, the town where they had the two brothers drop the cars off. On their way down river, Ed began to think about their story. When Ed relayed the story to Bobby, Lewis overheard it but didn 't say anything. When they came ashore in the town, Lewis says 'You 're doing it exactly right; you 're doing it better than I could do. Hang in there. ' This quote, at least to me, shows that Ed had taken over control of the group, and Lewis approved of the action. From this point on, in the story, Ed had control over the group. It becomes more and more evident as the novel progresses; however, it was at this point that the passing of the torch took place.

The final piece of evidence that shows uncivilized free and wild thinking is when Bobby, Ed and Lewis decide to cover up the triple homicide. In a normal society, none of these events would likely have happened, but because of the bizarre nature of the community and their anxiety to escape back to their safer environment, they decide to cover up the murders of the hillbillies and Drew. They get to a house and call the paramedics and the police. Instead of telling the truth to the police, the survivors say that Drew drowned instead of being murdered. They did not say anything about the hillbillies or any of the strange adventures that they went through. This is important to the book because it shows the change that these three men experienced.

Men who were expecting a peaceful weekend adventure find themselves instead fighting to survive. They were not fighting to survive nature, as in weather or a wild river ride, but instead to escape from two deranged individuals who sought to harm them for no apparent reason. Bobby is hurt physically and mentally. Lewis used his skill as a deer hunter as a way to free his two friends from the murderous hillbillies. Ed experienced the most drastic change, because he started out as the calmest of the four, and ended up at the opposite extreme when he risked his life to save his friends. The lesson of Deliverance is that even the most bland suburbanite male can get in touch with his wild core if the circumstances make it necessary.

In conclusion, this novel offered many different realms of thought, many ethical dilemmas to ponder.
Dickey 's intent was to offer detail is so intense it gives the reader a picture of the fear, allowing one to actually feel the rapids, experience the hillbillies, and understand the hardships placed on the men during the trip on the river, to think about what they would do if faced with similar situations. This type of inner conflict offers one a basic understanding that every man goes through during each stage in life. One can relate this conflict with real life situations of their own, whether it is a flat tire on the highway, conflict with other people, or camping in the wilderness. Dickey did a wonderful job at placing the viewer in the shoes of the dynamic characters in the movie. The movie has forced the viewer into analytical thought to understand the stream of
consciousness.

Morals clearly plan an intricate role in our lives. Without them, decisions would be based on a completely random level, and life could never have organization. Without morals, raising children would be virtually impossible; both the parent and the child would be in a constant state of confusion. While many times moral values can, in fact, conflict with that of others ', violence often makes things worse.

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Works Cited

Calhoun, Richard J. and Robert W. Hill. James Dickey. Twayne 's U.S. Author Ser. 451. Boston: Twayne, 1964.

Kellman, Steven G. "Deliverance."� Masterplots II: American Fiction Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 5. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1994.

Suarez, Ernest. "James Dickey."� Yearbook: 1996. Ed. Samuel W. Bruce and Kay Webster. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. "˜96. Detroit: Gale, 1997.

Wagner, Linda. "Deliverance."� James Dickey. Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.