part 6, chapter 2, page 226
Shackleton took a crew of five other men with him on his journey to South Georgia in search of rescue. As they left Elephant Island, they realized how difficult of a journey it would be. They were in constant efforts to keep the boat steady and going in the right path. The ocean spray was relentlessly spewing into the boat and made it impossible to get a moment of relief of the wet atmosphere. They had so much stress into just staying afloat that they almost never thought of their dream goal: South Georgia. Lansing describes, " Only very occasionally did they think about South Georgia. I was so remote, so Utopian that it was almost depressing to contemplate...Instead, life was reckoned in periods of a few hours, or possibly only a few minutes-an endless succession of trials leading to deliverance from the particular hell of the moment."
Shackelton and his crew might not have been able to make it through those perilous waters if they were only worried about making it to their destination. They had to look at the problems at hand first and not just at the result. Life is like this. It is important to have goals in life and to look ahead to them, but if we focus everything on just that, then we are sure to miss important things along the way. Similarly, we must live our lives day by day just trying to survive.
More Information on the James Caird Voyage
My literary term is syllepsis. (a construction in which one word is used in two different senses)
part 6, chapter 2, page 224
"Wet through, but happy through it all."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHannah, I liked your comparison. It had a good meaning to it. :)
ReplyDeleteHannah, I like your visuals in the posts! Good information. I'd like a bit more analysis of how the syllepsis works here [i.e. edit posts].
ReplyDeleteFeel free to go back and "edit posts". You might want to highlight the lit term and partial quote that exemplifies the lit term. Then discuss the author's purpose/effectiveness of that lit term. Check back posts to see if you can enhance this last part of each lit term discussion