Hard times on the Floe (1-4)

"We have just been a third of a year on the floe, drifting as Nature has willed. I wonder when we shall see home again."

Since the men have been on the Floe, they have switched to many different camps in search for better accommodations while they waited to spot land. However, there efforts do not help for the food supply is greatly diminished and the warmer temperatures seem to be working against them. To adapt to the pressures of the lack of food. The men must kill their dogs to lessen the distribution of food. The men dutifully kill their dogs, knowing that it is worth their survival although they have grown very attached to their team. Through all this the men only wish that they can once again be on land. The frustration of the men's predicament can be understood by the sarcasm of Worsley, "we are probably hurtling to the North at the incredible speed of 1 mile an hour!"

This frustration of sitting and waiting for hope to arrive reminds me of the television series Lost. The show lasted 6 seasons and the entire time these people continually found it hard to get off the island. Despite all of their best efforts there was always some other entity or group that prevented them from achieving their goal. They might have been about to signal a navy ship with a radio when somebody destroyed it, or perhaps they were about to escape on a raft when a group of strangers burnt it. That hopelessness is present in both Shackleton's voyage and in Lost.