Endurance: Part 1, Chapters 5-8



A Sense of Overconfidence



            In these chapters, the crew members aboard the Endurance do in fact endure a brutal winter, only to have to abandon their ship in the summer months. Although the winter tried the patience of the crew and could have led to arguments and tension, the men surprisingly grew closer to each other. They conquered the darkness and isolation of the Antarctic winter with games, pranks, and laughter. The courage that it took for these men to survive the brutality of the winter can be related to the courage of the immigrants who were processed at Ellis Island. In the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s, men, women, and children from all over the world in faced a treacherous journey, and entirely new place, new customs, and oftentimes a new language. As the constant pressure of the ice battered away at the Endurance and her crew, immigrant processing, questioning, disease, and medical examinations battered away at the immigrants. They persevered though, so that they and their future generations could have better, more fulfilling lives. Similarly to the men aboard the Endurance, the immigrants had no idea what their future might hold, but they embraced their new lives with exceptional courage and bravery. Although both Shackleton’s crew and the immigrants encountered danger and fear, they, in the end, overcame their predicaments.

            A parable, or a story that illustrates a moral lesson, is a literary term that is employed in the novel Endurance. Shackleton uses a parable in order to warn his men of the dangers of becoming overconfident.

            “Shackleton said there once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer, and he drank all he could hold. When the mouse had finished, he sat up, twirled his whiskers, and looked around arrogantly. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘where’s that damned cat?’ ” (50).

            This quote represents the literary term parable. In this section of the novel, there had been a breakup in the ice that had previously immobilized and threatened to crush the Endurance, and the crew was becoming very confident in their ship. It is at this point that Shackleton stated this parable. He warns them not to get an inaccurate perception of reality, because that often leads to overconfidence. Although the ship had withstood all the pressure she had faced so far, Shackleton reminded the men that she was built to break through ice, not withstand pressure, and so far they had just had a stroke of good luck in that aspect.