Summer Homework, Alfred Lansing, Endurance, Chapter Five-Eight, Maxim

Chapter five begins with the crew of the Endurance hopelessly trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic. Now the arctic night, weeks of little to no sunlight, extreme cold, and few opportunities for hunting, has arrived. by now the Endurance had been trapped for several weeks, with no sign of ever coming loose. the author recalls an event when a similar ship on a similar voyage had become beset in the ice and the crew had come close to insanity after the prolonged entrapment. further into the chapter, the author gives the reader more information of the origin and personality of some of the crew members.

In chapter six and seven, Spring, or the Arctic version of Spring, is on approach and the crew experiences the first event of the ice putting pressure on the hull of the ship. By July, the Temperature went from cold to really, really, intensely freezing cold. Soon the ice floes were putting immense pressure on the hull of the ship. Now the danger of the ship being lost is all the greater and the crew is put on high alert.

In chapter eight, the ship has been brought to its knees by the relentless pressure of the ice. Men were assigned to manual bilge pumps to stave off the nearly constant flow of arctic water. Many were worked to exhaustion during their watch and went to their bunks nearly dead from the constant efforts to save the ship. Alas, the efforts to save the ship were in vein as the hull buckled under the overwhelming pressure. The ship was abandoned and the crew left in the inhospitable conditions.

"'She's going, boys.' he said. 'I think it's time to get off.'(Page 60)"     

The quote above is a superb example of a Maxim (a concise statement, often offering advice; an adage). As the ship succumbs to the ice, Shackleton is going around and telling people to abandon the ship and to move to the ice. This short, precise statement is offering the idea that Shackleton is giving his advice to the crew that it is time to let the ice take the Endurance.

I can relate this section of the book to the film trilogy of The Matrix. At first, the problems that present themselves to the main characters are relatively nominal. Soon these problems consume the existence of life until both Neo and Shackleton give in to the all consuming trechery of the Ice, in Shackleton's case, and the computer virus, in the case of The Matrix.Although Neo comes out victorious in the end, we will have to see how the situation for the crew of the Endurance turns out.