In her essay, “Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Ed Gentry,” Betina Entzminger argues that at the heart of James' thought Dickey Deliverance is the search for a lost masculinity in today's world, told through the lens of the protagonist's canoe journey. She says Ed understands the social pressures on each gender, forces that push us toward the stereotypes that pervade our culture. Furthermore, Entzminger believes, “Although Ed sees these buildings as buildings, he is unable to rise above them” (Entzminger). Ultimately, Entzminger posits, “Ed dutifully destroys that which challenges his and his community's conceptions of gender and sexuality, and finds comfort in his return to his community at the end of the novel” (Entzminger). However, while Entzminger is right that Ed never moves beyond society's gender constructions, his mistake is in assuming that Ed ever wanted to do so, or even should have done so. These gender issues are at play early in the novel. Early on, before the canoe trip, Ed visits his office. Surrounded by women, he feels alone and uncomfortable. To compensate he forces himself to examine each of the women, dividing them from people into purely sexual objects. Designed to satisfy his lost masculinity, the ordeal brings him little pleasure and even depresses him. “I am with you but not of you. But I knew better. I was one of them, for sure” (Dickey 15). And she senses the constant bombardment of women that has revolutionized American society over the last century, from women's suffrage in the 1920s, to the expansion of women into the workforce during World War II, to the equal rights movement of the 1960s and ' 70. These changes have made all of us women, and Ed, together with his three companions,...... at the center of the card...... of life. The ultimate power, and ergo machismo, is the authority over life and death, and it was his. After the trip, Ed returns home to his wife in civilization. However, he is now unaffected by the feminist influences that plagued him before, he is a man and understands his place in the world. The journey pushed his limits, forcing him to overcome the emasculation granted to him by society, as when he snatched the gun from the hands of the would-be rapist or when he killed the other mountain man with nothing else to rely on but himself same. He has reclaimed his manhood, his “true, whole self” as Entzminger would say, and may return to civilization better for it. Works Cited Dickey, James. Liberation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Print. Entzminger, Betina . "Return to the raft Ag'in Ed Gentry." Southern Literary Journal 40.1 (2007): n. page Muse of the project. Network. April 18. 2011.