Summer Homework, Alfred Lansing, Endurance, Part V, Chapters Four-Six

After the group left for South Georgia Island to find help, those how remained were in a degree of depression. The terrible conditions and threat of supply shortages might have drove them to insanity. But, the men prevailed by creating a ramshackle shelter out of one of the boats that had been left. Optimism was all that the men had to go on. Many of them reasoned that if they were going to die, they would die full of hope that help was on the way. It would help no one if everyone had an attitude of absolute hopelessness. Hope was the one thing that kept the morale of the crew afloat. Hope also kept the crew unified and cooperative. Nevertheless, if Shackleton did not return soon, the crew was sure to die a horrible death.

"'We were all ridiculously weak,' Orde-Lees wrote. 'Stones that we could easily have lifted at other times we found quite beyond our capacity, and it needed two or three of us to carry some that would otherwise have been one man's load. . . . Our weakness is best compared with that which one experiences on getting up from a long illness'(Page 196)."

The quote above represents just how bad the food shortages were. The weakness that the crew felt was one of starving and fatigue. Constantly changing weather also made for a miserable time on the island.

This section of the book reminds me of the novel Night by Elie Wiesel in the fact that in both situations hope was one of the things that kept spirits alive during a desperate situation. Hope for rescue and to see loved ones helps to keep the optimistic spirit with both Elie and the crew. 

Elie Wiesel's Night