Advg 3200 - the Worst Journey in the World Book Analysis

Adventure Book Analysis

To – Bob Vranich

From - Gurtej Singh Virk

Thompson River’s University

ADVG 3200

Due Date – 28-Feb-2017

Introduction -

The book I have chosen for the book analysis assignment is ‘The Worst Journey in the World’. It recounts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his partners to create a detailed account of Scott's legendary expedition. Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold. It is through Cherry's insightful narrative and keen descriptions that Scott and the other members of the expedition are fully memorialized. The Worst Journey in the World continues with two more years of Antarctic enterprise, including Scott's successful assault on the Pole and along with Birdie's and Bill's subsequent deaths on the Beardmore Glacier. At last, in 1913, Cherry hand-delivers three pickled penguin eggs to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.

'Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.' So Apsley Cherry-Garrard recalled his experience on Scott's Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica.

Summary –

The Worst Journey in the World is a memoir of the 1910–1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott. It was written and published in 1922 by a member of the expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of the

Difficulties of the expedition, the causes of its disastrous outcome, and the meaning (if any) of human suffering under extreme conditions. In 1910, Cherry-Garrard and his fellow explorers travelled by sailing vessel, the Terra Nova, from Cardiff to McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. 'Cherry' was teased at first by some of the other members of this expedition because of his lack of Antarctic experience, his lack of specialised credentials for the position of 'assistant zoologist' to which he had been named, and persistent suspicions among some people that he had in fact bought his way on board by contributing £1,000 to the expedition's troubled funds. Cherry-Garrard responded to these taunts with modesty, ability to work hard, and acute observational skills.

He was also, according to novelist, biographer, and socialite Nancy Mitford, the only intellectual amongst the crew. These traits were to serve him well when it came time for him to write down his memories of the expedition. They also caught the eye of the expedition's second-in-command, Dr Edward 'Bill' Wilson, who adopted Cherry-Garrard as a protégé. Dr Wilson's personal goal in Antarctica was to recover eggs of the Emperor penguin for scientific study. It was thought at the time that the penguin might shed light on an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds through its embryo. As the bird nests during the Antarctic winter, it was necessary to mount a special expedition in July 1911, from the expedition's base at Cape Evans, to the penguins' rookery at Cape Crozier. Wilson chose Cherry-Garrard to accompany him and 'Birdie' Bowers across the Ross Ice Shelf under conditions of complete darkness and temperatures of −40 °C and below. All three men, barely alive, returned from Cape Crozier with their egg specimens, which were stored. It was this "Winter Journey", not the later expedition to the South Pole that Cherry-Garrard later described as The Worst Journey in the World.

The author ask the questions which comes to every readers mind is what is this venture? Why is the embryo of the penguin so important to science? And why three explorers be sledging away on a winter night to a cape which has only been visited before in daylight, and then with very great difficulty? So the answers to the question is the motivation in terms of goal achievement, risk taking and social motivations, as they wanted to be unique and do something for the society. In terms of reversal theory they were very serious about achieving their goal. The author explains emperor as the most primitive bird in existence that the working out of his embryology is important, as the embryo shows remains of the development of an animal in former ages and former states, and the embryo may prove the missing link between birds and reptiles which birds have sprung. So this takes me back to what we studied in class as the essence of adventure which is defined as the desire for something, a condition which they all 3 had.

    It all begins with the acceptance of a situation where they knew that they will need to call upon their own talents and spontaneously act upon them. Adventure is all about finding new things in life. They knew it is important without actively seeking, without attempting to, and going beyond what a person already knows one can accomplish, there is no growth. Adventure is rewarding, it is exciting, fun and exhilarating at the same time. Through the means of adventure they wanted to seek an adventurous way of life, otherwise there was only a small and narrow world to explore. Adventure does not lie only within the objective natural world. It lies deep within oneself, within spiritual, emotional and intellectual spheres of personhood.  Through Adventure peace is obtainable. Maybe the duration is ephemeral, and feelings of peace certainly vary from person to person, but peace is an outcome of adventure which happened in their case as during the whole expedition none of them used any foul language or bad words and remained calm throughout the trip.