Thursday, October 11, 2012

Endurance part 3

In this section the team is hit or miss in their rations. One week there is enough to eat, the next week there's next to nothing. This is partly because when they had more seals than Shackleton wanted he ordered the dead seals to be left because he felt they had enough for at least a month. He had a sense of optimism that was not at all macthing with the reality. In fact, the seals they did have only lasted a few weeks. Shackleton is continuously ordering the slaughter of the dogs, and is still completely out of touch with reality. At this point in the book, the men seem to be getting tired of it. They start to write in their journals in code so no one else will know who they are referencing. The attitudes of the men in the tent had went from a cheery disposition, listening to  music and reading, to not wanting to hear the same old tunes and read the same books they have read over and over. Some relief came when they discovered a wind was drifting them toward where they wanted to be and that some of the ice was breaking up enough to try to get the boats in the water. They did however start to hallucinate and see land that was not actually there. I feel like the men are definitely losing the  optimism they once had for being rescued and  Shackleton's optimism, to them and honestly to me,  is looking more and more like a man insane.
































3 comments:

  1. Shakleton's optimism at this point started to annoy me. The survival to him was important, but it almost seemed as though he had planned for disaster. It did not seem normal that Shakleton would seem so positive about his choices for example, leaving food behind. When food was all that the men could look forward to almost always being around who was Shakleton to tell the men to leave it behind? It was the only source of guaranteed survival for now. How could he be so confident when by now his leading the ship had failed.

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  2. I completely agree with you about Shackleton appearing more and more insane. He clearly made a bad call about the food and the men all had to suffer because of it. His optimism does get on my nerves at this point and I find it easy to see how the men could begin to question his actions.

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  3. I agree that Shackelton started to seem a little loopy. Sometimes, when someone is that optimistic at a time when there is no optimism to be found, they come off as not right in the head and in denial. I can completely see why the men started to become aprehensive of their leader.

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