We're Going Under! Just Hope We Come Up!

While not considered an actual "baptism" (at least not one I would want to endure), the figurative baptism in the novel Deliverance by James Dickey signifies a massive change in the characters, Drew, Lewis, Bobby, and Ed. The four men are on a canoe trip down a river deep in Georgia, when tragedy strikes them. Lewis defended Ed and Bobby from a pair of vicious hillbillies at an early stop along the river, killing one and running off the other. The group thought that they would be safe once they were back on the river, but this was not the case. The group is floating down the river, approaching a set of rapids, when a shot rings out from a cliff overlooking the river, hitting Drew in the head, and capsizing both canoes. All four go underneath the water and the rapids, nearly drowning, reaching for any chance of survival, when they finally come up from certain death and manage to swim to the shore. Unfortunately, this begins the group's troubles.

This near death experience is also the groups "baptism." Each group member is changed in a significant way from this event. Lewis, described throughout the book as an eccentric, searcher on a quest for immortality (involving an obsessive regimen of dieting, weight lifting, archery, anything to improve physical condition), suffers a severe broken leg that sidelines him for the rest of the novel and threatens his life. The injury gives Lewis a limp and a new outlook on life: that of man finally accepting that he is mortal and can not change this no matter how hard he tries. Ed, a normal family man and business owner, must scale the cliff, under which the group managed to reach after the capsizing of the canoes, and hunt down the surviving hillbilly that took his revenge for the death of his friend. This turn of events causes Ed to reach deep within himself and to embrace the wildness in himself, giving him the ability to kill the hillbilly. Not exactly the type of action from a normal man, but Ed has been affected to where he is no longer the same man with the same inhibitions. Drew, the lead canoe paddler, dies before the group goes under the water, as he is the one shot by the hillbilly, forever lost from the world, changing the way his friends perceive him- with guilt and sadness about his death, instead of remembering the good-time loving member of their group. Bobby, the "tag-along" of the group, along just for the experience, was the hillbillies first victim, the one held captive and pushed almost to death by them, before being saved by Lewis. Bobby began to retreat farther into himself to deal with the emotional turmoil resulting from the incident, but after the capsizing, nearly completely closes himself off due to the shock. Even after the group is rescued and journeys back into civilization, Bobby is still haunted by his experience on the river and shuts himself off from the world, trying to make sense of the events. Basically, his curiosity becomes as damaged as his mind because of his experience.

Not every baptism is a baptism in the sense most people think. Usually, water and a change of mind equal a baptism. So always watch were you walk around large bodies of water- someone may think you need a change of mind and help you with that change.