Endurance, Part VII

Quote- "They had no medals or decorations to bestow- only their heart-felt admiration for an accomplishment which perhaps only they would ever fully appreciate." 


Discussion- The men are exhausted, but fear that the Caird will be pulled out to sea or dashed into the rocks keeps them all awake.  After many things are removed from the ship to decrease its weight, including the deck, the men can finally muster the strength to pull the boat farther up on the shore.  Shackleton realizes that with the state the ship is in , the best option is for him and a few men to travel across the island on foot to reach the whaling ports.  They sail to the head of King Haakon Bay so that Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean could start off from more hospitable terrain.  Once the weather allowed it, the three men shook hands with the others and quickly set off.  To the disappointment of the party, they were required to retrace their steps many times because their current path was impassable.  The three men walk into the port of Stromness, looking a ghastly sight, and Shakleton is taken to the house of his aqauintance, the regular factory manager.  At first the manager did not recognize Shackleton, for all three of the men were heavily bearded, with stark white skin, except for the soot on their faces, and wore pitifully tattered clothes.  Once Shackleton identifies himself, the men are immediately given the star treatment.  The quote shows that even though the men may not have done exactly what they set out to do when the expedition started, they ended up doing so much more.  Their battle was over, and they have won.  They were alive and well, and that is more than they could have asked for.  They bathe, shave, feast, and put on fresh clothes.  The Samson is sent to retrieve the rest of the men at King Haakon Bay.  Shackleton was anxious to rescue the remaining castaways, but three attempts failed due to the unrelenting ice.  On August 30, a ship was sighted off the coast of Elephant Island.  The castaways cheered loudly and rushed onto the ship.  At last they had been rescued.

Endurance, Part IV, Chapters 4-6

Quote- “Thus, in the space of only an hour, or maybe a little more, the outlooks on board the Caird was completely altered.  The battle was half won, and a warm sun was overhead.”


Discussion- The gale has finally ended and the sun has come out.  The quote demonstrates how even in the worst of situations, the crew is optimistic.  The sun gives hope and they are almost cheerfully looking forward to their future.  I believe their optimism to be outright astounding, considering what they have gone through so far.  Their boat is an absolute mess, their sleeping bags are rotting, their clothes are wet, and they suffer from many different medical ailments.  Nonetheless, the men continue with smiles on their faces.  Strong winds continue to batter the ship, but the men fight back and keep their determination.  Despite their good spirits, the men slowly grow anxious as time passes and still no sight of land.  If they are as close to land as they believe, they should have seen signs of it days ago.  Finally, the fog clears enough for the men to catch a glimpse of a mountain peak.  But to the crew’s utter dismay, the boat cannot land due to the violence of the water crashing into the shore.  Shackleton plans to bring the boat around to a more suitable landing spot, but the boat faces severe weather, enormous swells, and violent currents that threaten to spontaneously end their journey.  In a last desperate attempt, Shackleton uses the last bit of waning daylight to carefully guide the boat through a small opening and onto land.  The men’s only sign of rejoicing is the gusto with which the suck up the water from the melting ice.

Endurance, Part VI, Chapters 1-3

Quote- “Their plight was known only to the six men in this ridiculously little boat, whose responsibility now was to prove that all the laws of chance were wrong—and return with help.”

Discussion- This quote blatantly displays the immensity of the task that lay before the men aboard the Caird.  This mission is the entire expedition’s last hope.  If the crew fails, all the men will die.  Shackleton’s immense ego has been worn down throughout the journey, and now he doubts himself and his ability to successfully complete the mission.  As a round character, he has changed from being strong, determined, and purposeful to being tired, doubtful, and apprehensive.   Ice is at the moment the crew’s biggest worry.  Any decent collision could immediately end their journey.  Another problem was the constant splashing and spraying of water onto the boat and the men.  Life at sea on the small boat was quite uncomfortable indeed.  The men were constantly freezing, wet, and sore.  The winds and the weather are strong and merciless.  The focal point of existence was concentrated into a matter of a few hours.  The men no longer thought of the future, solely the task at hand.  Both the men’s lower extremities and the navigational books were dangerously soaked through.  By the end of April, the men were almost one-third of the way.  Unfortunately, a coating of ice was growing on everything.

Literary Term: round character- Shackleton is an example, as his character and personality has changed drastically as the novel has progressed.

Endurance, Part V, Chapters 4-6

Quote-‘ “We are still enduring our existence here with patience,” Macklin wrote on July 6, “and time really passes fairly quickly in spite of the dreadful tedium…” ’

Discussion- The men that remain on the island have no much more to do than wait for rescue.  At first, many believe the ship will return in a matter of a month or two, but after looking for the ship daily in vain, the men are forced to realize the fact that they must winter on the island.  They build a shelter out of rocks and an upturned boat, and continue to make improvements, though it is far from ideal.  This quote shows that at the beginning, the men had not much else to do but wait to be saved.  They were bored, but they could deal with it as long as they kept their hopes up.  The men read, dream, talk, and write in an attempt to keep their minds of the situation at hand.  Besides that, all they could do was wait and hope.  As time stretched on though, the men grew more discouraged.  To lighten the mood, the men celebrate Midwinter’s Day on June 22.  It becomes harder and harder for the men to keep their spirits up as the days slowly drag on, and still the watchmen see nothing on the horizon.  Another large disappointment among the remaining crew was the usage of the last of the tobacco.  The need was so great that the men tried to smoke different things, such as lichen.  The men were barely holding on.  Two were invalid due to frostbite and many others were ill or suffered from repulsive soars.  As the end of August approaches, the men grow less and less hopeful, and this loss of morale is clearly recorded in all of their diaries.  They begin to wonder if they will ever be rescued.

Literary Term: turning point- A very significant change occurs when Shackleton and his chosen crew set off with all the best supplies and rations to search for help.  The men left behind face an even more difficult existence, and for them, this attempt at a rescue operation is all they have left. 

Endurance, Part V, Chapters 1-3

Quote- “It was security.  The knowledge that, comparatively at least, there was nothing got fear.  There was still danger, of course, but it was different from the imminent threat of disaster which had stalked them for so long.”

Discussion- At last the men had reached the secure land.  They could rest and eat and sleep.  But to their utter dismay, Shackleton soon ordered that the crew take to the boats again to find a better piece of land, for he feared that their camp would eventually be underwater.  The stores were packed and the ships were launched.  Though waters were troublesome, all three ships made it safely to the new site, which was not much better than the old one.  Shelter was quite scarce, and the tents were constantly battered by the wind.  Frostbite was still a major issue, and many men managed to save their hands only after sticking them in the fresh carcasses of penguins or seals.  Even through a severe blizzard, the Caird was being prepared for its journey to South Georgia to search for help.  A large amount of supplies are taken for the other two boats to strengthen the Caird.  Finally conditions are favorable enough for the ship to take off.  Three cheers are given and the boat quickly sails out of sight.

Literary Term: personification- To accurately describe the intensity of the gales, Lansing gives human qualities to the storm when he says, “…the cliffs sucked down on winds passing overhead so that they shrieked down upon the boats, and roared out to sea.”

Endurance, Part IV, Chapters 4 and 5

Quote- “It was more than just a sunrise.  It seemed to flood into their souls, rekindling the life within them.”

Discussion- Many medical ailments were befalling the men, including severe frostbite and salt-water boils. Though the men were still a ways away from land, they pushed on in desperation with the last little strength and ounce of energy they had left.  The sunrise is a symbol of hope for the men.  It is the opposite of the terrifying, freezing, and utterly horrific experience they have been going through on the boats.  Their struggle is not over yet, but the light gives the exhausted men the strength to push forward.  The men still had a long fight ahead of them, but things were looking up.  They finally were able to retrieve some ice to drink, and the Wills and the Caird had finally found a decent spit of land on which to camp.  At the end of the fifth chapter, all three boats were finally reunited and for the first time in 497 days, the men experienced the joyful feeling of being on safe, solid land.

Literary Term: symbol- The sun represents hope.  Its light brightens the men’s spirits and helps them to keep moving forward.

Endurance, Part IV, Chapters 1-3

Quote- “They made a pitiable sight- three little boats, packed with the odd remnants of what had once been a proud expedition, bearing twenty-eight suffering men in one final, almost ludicrous bid for survival.”

Discussion- After finally managing to get away from Patience camp, the men steer the boats toward the nearest land, though due to currents and gales, their target destination constantly changes.  They spend one night on a seemingly secure floe, but must abandon it when it splits.  The next night they try to camp on a floe-berg, but there are many dangers associated with that as well, such as being upended, crushed, or drowned.  Thankfully, before the ice could completely fall apart, a pool opens and the boats were launched once again.  For many nights, the men could not sleep, and did anything they could to try to keep warm.  The men continued to push on, but the nights are getting worse.  A growing problem is the lack of water the men had access to.  No ice had been taken onto the boats, thus the men are dehydrated with dry mouths and cracked, frostbitten lips.  Some even reached the point of not being able to swallow.  The crewmen were so hopeless and desperate that they even tried to pathetically fight their situation by shouting expletives. The quote clearly illustrates how far the men have come from the beginning of their expedition, but not in a good way.  They have gone from the large Endurance to the three smaller boats, from having plentiful stores to being constantly hungry and thirsty, and from being strong, confident, determined men, to men clinging to life.

Literary Term: expletive-An interjection or profanity, which the men frequently shouted. I loosely quote Lansing when I say the men in the Docker fought back with the single pitifully ridiculous weapon they had- curses. They cursed everything cursable… 

Endurance, Part III, Chapters 4-6

Quote- Greenstreet had this to say in his diary, “… I fail to see any cause for excitement as it puts us no nearer getting out.  What i would far rather see would be a crowd of seals coming up so that we might get food and fuel.”

Discussion- The crew have resigned themselves to the style of living they have experience for the past couple months. They realize the journey to land is futile, and the sight is a tantalizing reminder of a comfort the men cannot enjoy.  Because of the conditions of the weather and the ice floes themselves, the men can neither sail or travel by land to reach their destination which was so close within their grasp.  This quote shows that the men are more in favor of a practical event that will help them survive for the time being, such as the capture of seals, instead of desperately hoping that some miracle would allow them to reach land.  Another large swell began and caused a crack down the floe.  Throughout the progression of these three chapters, cracks caused by swells continue to decrease the size of the floe.  Because of the shortage of rations and blubber with which to cook the food, the dogs are killed and fried, and the men rejoice when a large leopard seal is butchered.   The men continued to try to predict where the floe would end up, and the crew’s constant goal of land changed from island to island depended on drift and currents.  Towards the end, Clarence Island seemed to be where they were headed.  The floe was becoming so small, Shackleton finally gave the order to take to the ships and head to land.  The setting of the novel, which for the past four or five month had been different camps on floes, would soon change. By this point, there was no turning back.

Literary Terms: setting- A large majority of the novel so far has been set in the camps the men had pitched on large chunks of ice after the Endurance was abandoned.  Now, the setting was going to change, for the men took to the boats to head to land, and the ice closed behind them.

Endurance, Part III, Chapters 1-3

Quote- “Only if the pack chose, they might be permitted to escape, but for the present they were powerless; there was no goal, not even the smallest achievable objective to aim for.”

Discussion- By now, the men have completely forgone their optimistic outlook.  They are running low on stores, thanks to Shackleton’s odd way of displaying his optimism and leadership, and still have not found a safe way to continue forward.  Restlessness and even fear begin to grow among the men.  The tiny flickers of hope the men occasionally experience, such as the strong gale that blew them more than 80 miles in the right direction, never amount to anything significant and could even cause the men to become even more disappointed or fall into a deeper depression.  It was up until this time that the men had kept their optimism because they could actively participate in the effect to reach land and move forward.  Now they were completely at the mercy of the ice, currents, and gales, and there was nothing more they could do.  They reluctantly resigned to the occasional hunt and large amount of thinking.  This quote clearly describes the utter helplessness that the men were subjected to.  All they could do was sit and wait, and pray that the floe moved in the right direction.  Some were unsure they would make it out alive.  Rations were running low and dogs are being killed to save food.  Macklin even uses an allusion explorers would recognize when he writes in his diary that he fears the crew might face some of the hardships of Greely, whose was the leader of an expedition from 1881-1884 in which more than half of his men died of starvation.  There were few things to occupy the time other than playing cards and talking about the wind and food.  Thankfully though, near the end of the second chapter, a huge flock of penguins appeared around the camp and the threat of starvation was no longer imminent.  The crew faced one more disappointment before the end of the fourth chapter, unfortunately.  They observed movement of the ice caused by swells from the ocean.  To their utter dismay, the swells disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

Literary Term: allusion- Macklin makes an allusion to a famous explorer in his diary to display his fear about the shortage of stores and means of obtaining food.  His crew members and other explorers of his time would recognize the name Greely and would understand the predicament Macklin was trying to explain.

Small Adélie penguins without much blubber, but in large numbers can be a substantial food source

  

Endurance Part II

Quote- “Underlying the optimism and good spirits of the party was a deep-seated confidence that their situation was only temporary.”

Discussion- Not only does this quote display the continued optimism of the men in their precarious situation, I also believe it to almost be a non sequitur, because it seems that the crewmen have no logical reason to infer that they are going to be safe.  I feel like it is wonderful and beneficial for the crewmen to be positive and optimistic, for it helps with energy and morale, but they are stuck in a quite unfortunate situation with no clear or definite way of getting out.  The men are sleeping in tents on the snow and are even beginning to eat blubber for warmth.  Eventually, they succeed in rescuing a large amount of stores from the sinking ship, stores that could last them into the winter.  This is seen as a great accomplishment and lends itself to even more confidence among the men.  They are situated, as comfortable as possible, on a large ice floe waiting for a way to travel to land to obtain more stores.  It seems to me that the men’s fate completely relies on whether the ice floe they are currently camping one will drift or be blown close enough to their destination of land that they can make it the rest of the way themselves.  This dependence is evident in the joy the men display when a strong southerly gale causes a two-day blizzard.  Even as preparations are being made to get ready for Shakleton’s plan to travel, the men continue to be content with the schedule of camp life.  Only after they men run out of things to do do they become restless and ready for movement.  While all the crewmen are living in the moment and rarely think about the upcoming future, Shackleton remains distant, as the weight of the responsibility he carries causes him to appear aloof.  At the end of this section, the men are moving camp, and are far less optimistic.

Literary Terms: non sequitur- The crewmen seem to believe that the misery of their situation would soon be overcome, though they had no logical proof from which to reach their inference.  The men are stuck on a large block of ice that may or may not drift and blow in the direction they require, with stores that will only last a certain time.  For all they know, they could be dead in less than a year if they don’t find a way out.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage Part I, Chapter 1

My name is Nina Schalk and I am blogging about Alfred Lansing's book, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage


Quote: “As they went over the side onto the ice, most of the men felt immense relief at being away from the doomed ship, and few if any of them would have returned to her voluntarily.”


Discussion: The crew is in dire straits at the opening of the novel Endurance, as their leader Ernest Shackleton must give the order to abandon ship after a hard-fought battle against the water and the increasing pressure of the ice.  Though the crew had seen this coming for a while and the large majority breathed a sigh of relief when the order came, Shackleton saw the event in a different light.  Out of all the men aboard the ship, Shackleton seemed to be the only one to realize the hardships that lay ahead.  Not that the men were oblivious to their not-so-ideal situation, just that they all seemed to have a prevailing feeling that somehow everything would turn out alright.  Shackleton was in charge of making sure that happened, and he was also in charge of the entire expedition itself, the goal of which was to cross the Antarctic continent.  The men had no way of communicating with the outside world and were many miles from any sort of land, but knowing that he was an experience and purposeful leader, they had confidence in Shackleton.  The above quote summarizes the mood of the shipmates after getting on the ship.  A couple unlucky crew members by the names of Alexander Macklin and Frank Wild were ordered to return to the boat to retrieve firewood and concrete details were used to describe how the ship was violently pressured until the walls came in sounds came forth sounding like a tortured animal.  These sounds were an example of dissonance, as they were harsh and without pattern or rhyme.

Literary Terms: mood- The emotional atmosphere in the first chapter is primarily one of shared relief between the crew mates as they are finally given the order to abandon their sinking ship.

           Concrete details- The author clearly and specifically describes what the heavy, moving ice floes are doing to the tough ship.  He tells how the ice is pushing the boat from multiple sides and even though the walls are many feet thick, they bend in like a new sapling.

           Dissonance- The sounds given off by the sinking ship are very harsh and discordant.  They are compared to various other sounds, such as a train and a dying beast.

This is the Endurance after she was abandoned

An example of the ice floes the ship may have encountered

           

Endurance Part I, Chapters 2-8

Quote: “The Endurance was one microcosmic speck, 144 feet long and 25 feet wide, embedded in nearly one million square miles of ice that was slowly being rotated by the irresistible clockwise sweep of the winds and currents of the Weddell Sea.”

Discussion- This display of strength by the floes was not the first or the last that would wreak havoc on the ship.  Every time it seemed that the ship would be crushed, she managed to get out or somehow overcome the ice, and each time, the men grew more confident in the power of the ship.  The quote shows the utter helplessness of the situation, for the men could do absolutely nothing to reverse or change the effect the ice would have on the ship.  Still the crew, with the exception of Shackleton himself, continued to keep their optimism about the fate of the ship and the future of the expedition. The men may have believed that the ship could withstand any amount of barraging, but the author leaves little hints while describing the making of the ship that foreshadow the possibility that the ship will not deal with the pressure as well as everyone thinks she will.  When describing to the reader how the Endurance was built, the author makes a note to point out that the ship was not designed to cut through thick floes, only to swiftly move through loosely packed ice.  The ship was carefully, delicately, and meticulously formed using thick timbers of oak, double the number of frames, and employing other measures to strengthen the ship.  It was even said that she was the second-strongest wooden ship ever built.  In addition to the detail the author gives to the ship, he also thoroughly describes most of the crew members and how they came to be a part of the expedition.  Shackleton’s method of choosing the men lent a lot to his character, as he was quite whimsical and capricious.   By this point in the novel, the reader understands how the ship was built, how the expedition came to be, how the crew was chosen, and the intense effects of the ice and its pressure on the ship.  The reader also begins to wonder how the ice will continue to damage the ship and affect the crew.

Literary Term: foreshadowing- The reader becomes prepared for more damage caused by the ice when the author continually mentions the movement of the ice, the gales, and the subsequent pressure the ship had to endure.

Weddell seals were a great source of food