These questions can be used for book clubs and HSC English school students.
How is the concept of Discovery represented in the novel “Endurance” ?
This paper is intended as an aid to HSC students. Students should refer to their teachers for individual advice and guidance.
Quotations from the text are in italics.
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Introduction
In the novel Endurance the photographer Frank Hurley sets out firstly with the explorer Mawson and then with Shackleton on two quite different voyages of discovery of Antarctica. After an heroic rescue he returns in 1917 to discover that Australia is locked in a world war that makes the expeditions seem insignificant in the public imagination. It is the end of the Heroic Age of Exploration and the beginning of a modern age of unbridled Nationalism and global mechanised warfare. But how much does Hurley discover about himself as he increasingly becomes a loner who fails to relate well to his family and colleagues?
The novel is written in first person. The reader sees these startling and life changing events through Frank Hurley’s eyes. This enlivens the reader’s sense of discovery but how reliable is Hurley as a narrator when he appears to lack empathy and clashes with those around him.
This paper looks at the concept of Discovery reflecting on the following:
Place
Events
People and Relationships
Ideas
Language and Technique
The paper concludes by a brief summary of the Board of Studies (BOS) terminology in its description of the concept of Discovery and gives examples of these concepts from the text.
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Place and the concept of Discovery
Antarctica
As a photographer and adventurer Frank Hurley travels to many remote places but it is Antarctica which becomes a dominant presence and force in the novel Endurance. On the Mawson expedition Hurley with Bob Bage and Azzi Webb discovers and maps the route to the South Magnetic Pole. This is not as far as the South Geographic Pole but is still a one thousand kilometres return journey. Hurley can’t help himself linking his voyage of discovery with development of a reputation for fame and heroism.
Each day I grew more excited to be part of this pioneering discovery of the last unknown continent. If successful, it would be one of the first-ever achievements by our new nation, just ten years old. p34
At the time of the Mawson expedition much is unknown about Antarctica:
We know Aurora will eventually run into the southern icecap. It remains unknown if we will find land and, if we do, whether it will be connected to Victoria Land, the landmass further east under the icecap from where Scott and Amundsen set out several months ago in their race to the pole. Will we sail into walls of ice or, if we see land, will it be an archipelago or an island continent like Australia? p45
Because much is unknown Hurley’s initial expectations are formed partly from what Mawson has told him and partly by his imagination:
There were no inhabitants of this shore, no spear or gunfire resisted our arrival. There were no human defenders, no skulls and crossbones or dragons to warn us off. Our binoculars revealed no hidden pairs of eyes peering from the dark shadows of the gloomy landscape. We knew no people had lived in this place. There had been no humans ever to visit this part of the Antarctic continent for thousands of miles in either direction. This place, the very base of planet Earth, was repellent to humankind. It was an arid desert. There was no water to drink and virtually nothing to eat in the long winter. Apart from penguins and seals, there were few summer visitors. In winter even the sun stayed away and darkness prevailed. Virtually the whole of this land of ancient rocks lay hidden deep below mountains and chasms of ice. p48
Having run away from home and school at age 13 Hurley is embarrassed at his lack of education compared to his University educated colleagues. He jokingly asks Bage when they will reach the giant magnet:
‘I’m afraid, Hoyle, the South Magnetic Pole is a more subtle concept and more elusive than the South Geographic Pole,’ Bob says. ‘The magnetic poles have a restlessness to them, they are forever shifting. Even more confounding is the fact that wherever on earth you are, gives a different indication of magnetic north. So you can only know where it is when you are there.’
‘I’m sorry I asked. I won’t be able to sleep now.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about it. These forces are generated beneath the earth. No one knows much about them.’ p85
Hurley discovers the environment in Antarctica is brutally hostile to man and that the blizzards are a constant threat to survival. The hardship they experience challenges his assumptions as to the value which the world places on exploration of Antarctica:
I wonder as to the significance of any scientific work in this miserable place. Despite my initial excitement at exploring this unknown continent, I am now questioning if there is any point to our southward march. The world already has its Antarctic heroes with Scott and Shackleton. Will anyone really care what is achieved by us, wandering unseen and often unseeing through this alien land? p92
Elephant Island
The later Shackleton expedition is less concerned with scientific discovery and more intent on being the first party to cross Antarctica. After their vessel Endurance sinks the expeditioners are marooned on Elephant Island where they realise they are likely to die from starvation and exposure. Hurley discovers that even in such an inhospitable place there is a beauty and hope:
Fearful as these storms are I have come to prefer a wild sea to the deathly quiet of being iced in and surrounded by a frozen vista. The sea brings food and hope of rescue and the tides and currents are my connection with other lands and the rest of mankind, marooned here as I am on this most desolate piece of rock. p221
This is an intensely meaningful discovery for the restless Hurley, specifically derived from the remote place where the Endurance crew are stranded.
Western Front
After his miraculous rescue Hurley learns the whole world is at war. The very idea of a world war is new and confronting and Hurley along with his fellow expeditioners is profoundly shocked. He thought he was returning to the civilised world. He discovers the civilised world is capable of a barbarism he could not have imagined. He compares the battlefield to the desolation of Antarctica:
“This was my first view of no-man’s-land. It was a land the like of which I had never seen before and could never have imagined. No matter how many eyewitness accounts I had heard, no matter how many grainy photographs I had seen in the newspapers, I was unprepared for what lay before me. To the east for about two thousand yards was a wasteland bordered by long zigzagging lines of German frontline trenches, and reserve trenches further back. I could see into our own trenches and the hessian-covered squalor in which our infantry lived. This desolate corridor extended both north and south as far as the eye could see…….
My gaze took it in, horror upon horror. The countryside had been churned and raked into a landscape unrecognisable to its former rural inhabitants, and even more desolate than the icefields that had swallowed Endurance. There was little prospect for explorers who dared venture into no-man’s-land. Better to be adrift on an iceberg in the Antarctic. To have lived only to return to this!
And to think of my erstwhile companions on Aurora and Endurance who had already been killed and maimed by this uncivilised conflict”. p267-8
……..The carnage along the entire length of the Bosche trench was more than I could ever have imagined. There were none living. The entrenchments themselves were waterlogged and had collapsed inwards, with arms, legs and torsos strewn throughout in a macabre broth. I did not see how I could capture a credible photograph of this scene. I was nauseous. Images of the horror of Grytviken whaling station were here emulated by human slaughter, with ‘civilised man’ as the pawns in this evil game. p278-9
What other examples of places in the novel can you think of? The novel begins in Glebe where Hurley grew up before running away from home to live in Lithgow. Glebe at that time was very much a working class suburb. Hurley was very much a product of a working class family with a unionist father. Lithgow likewise was an industrial town. As a thirteen year old Lithgow is quite confronting but Hurley gains employment in a steel mill and discovers photography. This in turn leads to Hurley having a renewed perception of himself as a working man and having skills as a photographer. However when Hurley becomes engaged to Elsa, a girl from the more up market suburb of Double Bay he is self- conscious of what her parents will think of him (p127).
Note how in Punta Arenas, the recently rescued survivors become the centre of attention for the Chilean townfolk. Hurley realises he prefers to be solitary rather than surrounded and embraced by his fellow man (p230). Hurley came to the same view when he was in the East Indies (p115)
After the Shackleton expedition Hurley travels to England. At that time the vast majority of Australians had British heritage:
“And I had the strangest sense that in going to “old England” – with all the picture-book images of patchwork fields , ivy covered stone cottages and, of course Buckingham Palace- I was going home.” p236
Consider also how Hurley is initially unhappy to be sent to Palestine and how he is gradually enchanted by the history and beauty of the Middle East. Consider the unexpected discoveries he makes such as the desert wildflowers p313. Ironically when Hurley “rediscovers” Glebe he realises that being stuck at home can be as bad as being stuck in the ice.
The adventure was over. I struggled to work out why things didn’t seem the same and yet everything was the same. I had become accustomed to a way of life that could not be had in my family home. Life back in Glebe was for the time being both unescapable and intolerable. p118
In summary Hurley has “discovered” for himself the new uncivilised continent of Antarctica as well as the old civilised continent of Europe. Both proved unexpectedly dangerous in very different ways. When considering the above examples consider how each place has confronted and transformed Hurley and renewed his perception of himself. Consider in particular his ideas about heroism, leaders and leadership, religion, war and the army.
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Events and the concept of Discovery
Running away from home
Perhaps one of the key events in the novel is the fight Hurley has with his father which leads to him leaving home at just 13 years of age.
“I’ve never told this to anyone before, not anyone. I didn’t like to dwell on it. Fact is I was always treated as the troublemaker. So I just cropped it from the story of my childhood.” p6
We can see Hurley’s move to Lithgow is in part of necessity and in part curiosity. It leads to another event, Hurley’s introduction to photography.
At such a young age Hurley has limited insight into his own personality. To what extent do you think the events in the novel unfold because of his “difficult” personality and to what extent does he learn from these events?
Over the course of events in the novel he does discover much about the world. However Hurley’s egocentric personality limits his insight for internal self- discovery. Like a real life Forest Gump figure Hurley is involved in a series of historic events which shape him as an individual but also have an impact on broader society, the history of Antarctica and Australia. The tragic conclusion of the Mawson expedition is followed by the catastrophic events of the Shackleton expedition followed by the cataclysmic events of World War.
Shooting the Dogs
Hurley discovers a toughness and resourcefulness which enables his survival and makes him a valuable contributor to both expeditions. However it is in the context of some of these events that we see he increasingly becomes a loner, such as the occasion of the shooting of his sled dog team:
“I count through the eight shots. I try to concentrate on anything else, but by the end I am completely distraught and storm off so I don’t have to face anyone. I tell myself it’s a necessity but it hurts in a way I haven’t experienced for some years, and I realise I was closer to my dogs than my expedition colleagues.” p188
World War One
Of course the most shattering event is the World War which is relayed as a horror story:
“On arrival in Punta Arenas we had been dumbfounded at the stories of zeppelins and aeroplanes dropping bombs on cities, U-boats sinking passenger ships, machine guns, poison gas and liquid flamethrowers. And we thought our lives had been in peril! Before our departure I had no idea that such things could happen, but on our return the unspeakable had become the commonplace. I struggled to grasp what had changed in our absence”. p259
The war certainly challenges Hurley’s view of religion p301. However the World War has another unexpected effect. It puts the events of both expeditions in the shade and the bravery and heroism of the expeditioners is sidelined for the time being.
World events made our failed voyage insignificant to the public imagination. The conflagration in Europe made trivial that we had survived when so many had given up their lives. I realised the truth of Lady Scott’s words: that the time of great polar explorers like Mawson and Shackleton belonged to another age. Scott was talked about only for having died a noble death. p260
Consider other events in the novel and how they reflect on the concept of discovery. Consider how Hurley has to plan and work hard to be appointed by Mawson but his subsequent appointment by Shackleton is sudden and unexpected. Consider his unexpected appointment as Official Photographer to the AIF. In this way and by these events Hurley discovers he has created a reputation for himself. This is transformative because it gives Hurley a renewed perception of himself. He becomes famous as a photographer and a brave adventurer.
Consider events such as the sinking of Endurance, Hurley’s clash with Captain Bean and transfer to Palestine. Consider how they were both confronting and were also transformative in unexpected ways.
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Ideas and the concept of Discovery
Photography
Endurance has much to say about different ideas concerning photography.
At the start of the Twentieth Century photography was a relatively new discovery, colour photography was in its infancy and Kodak was selling the Box Brownie, one of the first popular mass market cameras. Young Frank Hurley is astounded at what appears to be magic when Big Bill first shows him how to develop a photograph:
‘Pictures can be on glass plates with chemicals or on rolls of photographic paper,’ he explained. I stood back as he swirled the film in solution in an old laundry tub under the dim light cast by a red lamp. ‘The picture is already stored on the paper. You’re looking at a chemical reaction.’ Then out of the blackness I saw an image take shape, an image of myself, a small figure in a landscape of towering cliffs and dark shadowy trees. I had been captured. It all seems so matter of fact today but at that time I thought Bill must have some kind of magical powers. I felt I had been initiated into one of the secrets of the universe and of mankind and our memories of things past. I was as impressionable as the photographic paper. p16
Prior to this experience the secrets of photography had been concealed to Hurley. We see Hurley’s initial discovery of photography was evoked by curiosity. In the Antarctic however he is forced by necessity to learn more about this skill so as to deal with the extreme climate.
Hurley’s discovery of cameras was transformative not just to him as an individual but to the whole of broader society. Photography of course was itself a discovery but also a means of discovering more about the world we live in. Before photography we had to rely on drawings and the written word. It is only in the last 100 years that the world of popular photography
created images which all of us can keep and share. With photography the young lonely Hurley discovered a passion which ultimately became his career:
My homesickness was overtaken by a love of photography, of discovering an image that filled the lens and capturing it, then developing it in the darkroom and transforming it into my composition. I was still alone, but with my camera I didn’t feel it as much. p17
Gradually Hurley realises more about the power of photography and the importance and responsibility he has as the photographer:
Whatever Shackleton achieves, it is my job to be there to create the images. My photographs may be all that endures, and they will be what I make them. Shackleton may not like it, but he must know it is I who holds the power of the ‘vivid picture’. p155
Hurley realises much of the skill is in the framing of the shot, in the selection of the field of view, what is included and what is excluded:
“I explore our new hinterland of raised hummocks and ice pinnacles. Through the camera viewfinder, the uninhabited icefloes are a meaningless jumbled landscape without perspective. Worsley obliges by stepping into the frame, a stark black silhouetted figure, sometimes on all fours, clambering amid the reflected glare from the blue and white frozen outcrops of rough-hewn ice.” p167
Hurley knows also that his images will endure long after their vessel Endurance has gone:
The solid timber masts were now puppets for the ice that gripped the hull. The masts and rigging twisted and turned and tangled. Spars crashed to the deck. Canvas sails unfurled, shook off the ice of winter and flapped noisily. Over several days the hull became a mangled wreck, smashed and crushed beyond
belief, but all before my eyes and recorded by my camera. The images I had taken were safe for the time being, but Endurance herself, our link with civilisation, was as good as gone. Our small fraternity was well and truly marooned on the now-melting icecap. p180
When Hurley returns from the Shackleton expedition and meets Perris, the expedition financier and newspaper owner he discovers that to sell his photography it needs to be more commercial:
He (Perris) sat back in his chair. ‘Hurley, we need a moving picture that tells a strong story. Shackleton’s story is very good, mind you, and you have plenty of film—and it’s good film; your camera work is first class. But it has to entertain. This war has been so depressing and drawn out. People—the public, that is—need some relief, some escape from it all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do I mean? I mean, Hurley, there are not enough penguins!’ p239
The idea of photography means different things to different people. When Hurley is appointed Official AIF photographer the Official War Correspondent Charles Bean explains:
‘The Australian soldier has already made a name for himself in this war, but our photographic record is non-existent. Your job is to create that record. You are going to see trench parapets and German pillboxes, scenes of heroic struggles that have taken a toll in lives. Those scenes and the units that fought there need to be recorded with your cameras and preserved for future generations.” p264
Hurley ultimately learns people have different points of view and different prejudices and that his photographs will be interpreted differently from the point of view of each observer.
“But every photograph reveals and conceals. And one thing I have learned, even with photographs, is that people still see only what they believe”. p353. This discovery reverses the common saying that you have to “see it to believe it”.
Heroism
The novel Endurance explores different types of heroism. Mawson, Shackleton and Scott belong to what is now recognised as the Heroic Age of Exploration and which ended with the Shackleton expedition. The start of World War One saw a new age of unbridled Nationalism and global mechanised warfare in which many heroes were wantonly sacrificed on the western front.
Shackleton reflects on whether his expedition should proceed bearing in mind the start of the war:
‘We will be the first to cross the Antarctic continent. No one before us could hope to do this. We are the ones to do it. Besides, Britain already has many war heroes, but the world also needs explorers.’
‘Like Scott.’
‘Yes, Fridhjof, like Scott—but, unlike Scott, I plan to bring my men home to their families.’ p146
The reader discovers there are different types of hero. Mawson and Shackleton are both brave but Mawson demonstrates he is more a man of science and Shackleton demonstrates he is a more natural leader. In London Hurley and Mawson meet the widow of the famous explorer Sir Robert Scott:
Lady Scott looked at me quite intently. ‘You explorers are all the same; you are quite obsessed. Do you know, Mr Hurley, to achieve your goals can be quite disillusioning. And as I know only too well, it is not so much about reaching your goal as the returning……..
Forget about being an explorer. The poles have been trampled on by men; the age of heroic discovery, I am afraid, is gone. Instead you men are now obsessed with killing one another.’
Mawson responded, ‘But you ignore the increasing discoveries in science’
‘Radioactivity? I have been reading about it; a cure for consumption would be more useful. And as for the benefits of scientific discovery, Sir Douglas, I know you are only doing your duty, but I cannot approve your current occupation. Supplying poison gas to the Russians, of all people, makes us British no better than the Germans.’ p246
Hurley’s photos of Australian soldiers are intended to depict their bravery and heroism against the enemy:
I had persuaded myself that those killed at Ypres died for a purpose, but now it all seemed utterly senseless. What was the point of my photographs of the 1917 campaign when those gains were now lost, when the men in those photographs were likely wounded or dead? Who could bear to look at reminders of such wanton sacrifice? p326
By the end of the novel Hurley realises the paradoxical nature of fame:
The voyage with Shackleton in 1914 is the most famous trip I made. The voyage was a failure but people say it was a glorious failure, a part of the heroic era of exploration. I was still in my twenties then. It was that extraordinary time before the horror of the trenches on the western front. Those images won’t go away. p352-3
There are many other ideas in the novel which reflect on the concept of discovery. Consider the references above (pp 34, 264) to the development of a sense of Australian nationhood. Consider the implicit and explicit racism in the novel and the way the writer deals with this subject, writing
in 2015 about a period when white Australia was Government policy. Hurley takes no exception to the use of the word “nigger” (p309) until it is used about his wife (p346). How does your experience reading this word reflect on your own discovery of changes in personal, cultural and social values? Is this language justified in the context especially considering part of a writer’s technique may be to shock the reader?
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People and Relationships and the concept of Discovery
Hurley assesses his progress as an adventurer in terms of what other people might think. He reflects on his relationship with his mother and father:
I am leading and setting the pace, and soon am in my own world, unconscious of the others, unable to see or hear them. I drift into a trance-like state, my mind flitting from changes in the ice ahead to the doctor and the other sledging parties. They should all be back at winter quarters by now, waiting for us. I think of my ma—she alone might be anxious as to my return—and then my father; he would have been proud and amused to see I was on the cusp of becoming an experienced polar explorer. p97
It is apparent Hurley has difficult relationships with both his parents. When he returns home after many years absence he “rediscovers” those relationships. He learns his father was once in business for himself and discovers a greater connection when his father helps him with his postcard business.
Hurley surprises himself at the connection he develops with Bob Bage and Azzi Webb after their journey to the South Magnetic Pole:
I had experienced what I craved: the adventure that accompanied the discovery of new horizons . But it had involved a degree of hardship that, naively, I had not expected. It had at times been touch and go between surviving and perishing. With Bob and Azzi I experienced something I had never felt before, a rare sense of oneness, that despite our differences we strived
for ourselves and each other. I had learned something of my fellow man; there was much I admired about certain of my AAE colleagues, but others I had little time for. p108
Hurley lacks competence in establishing and maintaining relationships. He has difficulty with emotions and in understanding others and lacks empathy.
He is particularly clumsy when he wants to propose to Elsa:
But Elsa’s head was nodding and, when I looked closer, I realised she was wiping away tears with her handkerchief. At last she looked up and spoke, but all I heard was a squeak. Our eyes met and I understood that she was accepting me. Now I was able to move from my seat; I stepped around the table to kiss Elsa on the cheek, the first time I had kissed a girl. p126
Hurley is again awkward and procrastinates in his subsequent friendship with Jill. He is however transformed by this experience to the extent that he wastes no time in pursuing and proposing to Antoinette. We can see Hurley wants a companion but it is apparent he has had very little time to get to know his future wife. After a long time in the company of men Hurley is only just discovering female companionship. It is clear to the reader that Hurley has a limited emotional register and has a lot more to discover about marriage. Later in Egypt when Hurley’s marriage proposal to Antoinette is accepted he fails to appreciate his own tears are a response to the occasion:
I lift her down and we kiss and hold each other for what seems a long time. It must be the desert sand, for we both have tears in our eyes. Toni produces a handkerchief and dabs both our cheeks. After a few minutes my awkwardness returns. We sit down beside each other, looking out across the sands. Now I really have no idea what to say. Toni cries into her handkerchief and I hold her hands in mine. p331
When Hurley’s former colleague, Captain Les Blake comes to stay with him in London, Hurley is very disapproving of Blake’s womanising:
“We soon argued and I told him his behaviour was immoral. He stared at me disbelievingly.
‘Immoral! Hoyle, have you any idea what things are like? Do you know what I do at the front? I am a captain of a battery of howitzers. I have killed more men than I will ever know. My own men have died in my arms. But I’m still a bloody virgin! I have hardly kissed a girl. I am not going back to the front without having a go!’ p249
One of the manifestations of Hurley’s difficulty with relationships is that he constantly clashed with the very people whose support he needed. In particular he fell out with Charles Bean who objected to Hurley’s composite printing, that is, combining multiple plate glass negatives to make one picture.
‘Listen here, Bean, I don’t do fakes!’ I was angry now. ‘I can assure you, the German artillery today was very real. Be serious, man. I can’t just stand up in the middle of no-man’s-land and wait for everything to line up in the viewfinder! ……..
‘Captain Hurley ……you owe it to the diggers to show things truthfully without cropping things in and out.’
‘I owe it to the diggers!’ I raised my voice. ‘I owe it to the diggers to show why so many are being killed without even seeing a German. You’ve told me no photographs of ANZAC casualties or that show ’em in a bad way. Well I happen to think their families ought to see the conditions they live in. And die in!’………
Bean’s face was flushed. ‘We don’t need to stoop to distorting things!’……….
‘Bean, I am not the one distorting things. I’ve read your dispatches. Light casualties in the battle for Menin Road! You wrote that!’ I excused myself and went to my darkroom, slamming the door behind me.” p285
Even at the end of the novel Hurley lacks sufficient insight to improve his relationships other than by going his own separate way.
I desperately needed to be free of the Beans, Shackletons and Mawsons of this world. I could see nothing but endless struggle trying to live within the scope of someone else’s imagination or subject to their greed. In my experience, the world was fuelled by conflict, from the trivial to the obscene. I could no longer throw in my lot with those around me. There was no one I could fall back on. I determined I had to seize control of my own fate. p341
We can see how Hurley has reassessed his relationships over time. To achieve success he needed a Mawson and later a Shackleton. His role as Official Photographer depended on Bean. Each of these relationships soured.
Hurley learned the hard way that there were consequences to these clashes.
Bean opposed Hurley’s ambition to tour his war photographs.
In the Epilogue Hurley says he is so used to being opposed he has come to a view that life is one long call to conflict. How do you as a reader feel about this view of the world?
Consider the influence of other characters on Hurley such as Big Bill.
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Language and Technique in the sense of Discovery
Think about the parts of the novel that appeal to you and try to identify what it is about the writing that creates that appeal. Those techniques that have added to your own discoveries are the best ones for you to discuss.
First Person narrative voice: Most books are written in third person, “he said, she did” etc. This gives an advantage to the writer of being able to comment on the story from all points of view. The writer is all knowing. Endurance however is told in first person through the eyes and ears of Frank Hurley. The advantage is a sense of immediacy as the reader discovers and experiences firsthand the adventures of each expedition. The reader identifies with Frank Hurley but also experiences moments when they question whether Hurley has understood or acted in the best way. The reader starts to realise that whilst Hurley is daring and skilful he lacks emotional intelligence and is to some extent an unreliable narrator. The reader is not told by the narrator that Hurley is unreliable. Instead the reader has to discover this by forming their own view. So Frank Hurley discovers a certain amount about himself but the reader hopefully discovers more.
Present tense: Most of the book is told in past tense. However in parts of the story the pace quickens and the writing changes to present tense, for example the Prelude and pages 38 to 47 of Chapter 2. Also Chapter 8 which tells the story of Endurance becoming stuck in the ice is told in present tense.
Again this technique is designed to add to the immediacy and drama of the adventures and to heighten the sense of discovery. Look for other examples where the tense changes.
Juxtaposition: There are a number of examples.
At pages 42 and 43 Hurley is horrified at the slaughter of seals and penguins but immediately afterwards he himself slays an albatross. He realises this is an omen for bad luck.
At pages 299 to 301 Wilkins reads to Hurley a recruitment speech given by Shackleton which causes Hurley to recall a poem by Browning and which is then followed by both men listening to a sermon given to soldiers near the frontline. The reader is able to compare the logic used in the justifications for war.
Anthropomorphism: At page 56 and following the blizzard is personified as an actual character, the enemy of the expeditioners. The men have landed on the windiest place on earth and this is conveyed by making the blizzard a fierce character. It is attributed with anger and other human characteristics as it discovers Mawson’s hut and screams, shrieks, rips, howls, rattles and steals loose objects. It plays games and calls a truce in its barrage on the encampment which it then tries to smother with snow.
Imagery: Choose the instances that appeal to you. For example, descriptive imagery is used to convey the remoteness and appalling climate in Antarctica as well as its beauty.
“My sense is that God has lost sight of us; we are faraway objects, as if seen backwards through a camera lens. Even the sun shrinks, diffuses and splits into two, then three suns, which my naked eye gazes on, each sun linked by a halo as depicted in picture books of the holy saints.” p161
The sinking of Endurance evokes the image of Golgotha.
“The bulk of the hull had dropped below the surface of the ice. The stumps of the three masts with horizontal cross spars stood out against the sky…….The wreck shuddered. I saw three twisted crosses pushing skywards before drunkenly cavorting as the ice shifted around them, and then they sank and were swallowed whole . Then all was still.”p180
Imagery is an important technique in the concept of discovery because it creates a picture in the reader’s mind. It can also be used by a writer to deepen the reader’s sense of discovery by suggesting or implying ideas.
This is especially important if ideas being “discovered” to the reader are concealed or beyond the understanding of the character narrating the story.
Humour: The sense of discovery can be intense in a narrative where there is only one central character Hurley and who with his fellow expeditioners face constant threats to their lives. It becomes important to break the tension and add light and shade with humour. There are therefore many examples of humour interspersed in the narrative. When Shackleton chooses to proceed south despite the war starting and against advice that Endurance will become stranded he argues with his Norwegian host:
“What we can achieve in Antarctica will be of such importance it will outlast a war in Europe. But for Antarctica you know, every continent in the world is occupied.”
“Ja, and by the time you come back, they will mostly be occupied by Germans.”
Other examples include page 45 when Hurley falls over, page 85 reference (quoted above) to the giant magnet which Hurley imagines at the South Magnetic Pole and the page 96 plum pudding episode. Also see the Perris speech about Penguins page 239/240 quoted above and p339 Captain Not very Smart.
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In Summary
The BOS asks you to consider discovery in the context of the description in the syllabus. The syllabus description uses a broad range of concepts many of which are itemised below. To strengthen your ability to relate these concepts to the text, consider the concept and then the examples in italics.
Everyone relates differently to a text. So start where you can be most confident, that is, the ideas that come into your own head when you read a book.
What has been your own experience of discovery through reading Endurance: (you appreciate the hardships of the early polar explorers)
Expand on your own ideas using the following concepts as prompts and creating your own examples:
Discoveries made for the first time (Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica) Discoveries that have been forgotten (the horrors of war)
Discoveries of things concealed; (that Hurley’s mother secretly wrote to Mawson p119))
Discoveries from planning evoked by curiosity/necessity/wonder : (Hurley forced to live with sailors in the Snuggery)
Discoveries unexpected (Mawson’s hut is in one of the windiest places on earth)
Discoveries emotional (upset reaction to killing of the dogs)
Discoveries creative (Christmas pudding recipe p96)
Discoveries intellectual (understanding the magnetic poles p86)
Discoveries physical (Hurley does not suffer sea sickness p38)
Discoveries spiritual (anxiety his Catholicism is a liability p71)
Discoveries confronting and provocative:- (Mrs Hurley’s racism towards Toni p346)
Discoveries that can lead to new worlds and values: – (consider the effects of the discovery of poison gas and radioactivity p247)
Discoveries that enable us to speculate about future possibilities – (that Hurley could lead his own expedition p341))
Discoveries offering new understandings of ourselves/others:- (that Captain Blake is tormented by deaths he feels responsible for p249)
Affirm or challenge widely held assumptions/beliefs (troubled that war is not glorious p280 and that the Church supports the war effort p301)
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