Endurance Part V: Ch. 5-6

     Even after so long of waiting to be rescued, the men on Elephant Island don't stop searching and hoping for the ship that will save them. Since their future is looking so grim, duties have been allowed to slack and men have been permitted to keep more to themselves. Oddly enough, the lack of civilized organization led to very few arguments and no one cared any longer what position another had held before being marooned. The weather became the determining factor in the men's moods and thoughts of real food became their motivation to get back home since they were tired of penguin and seal meat. A make-shift operation had to be performed to amputate one of the men's toes that had been attacked by frost bite. The only real time of sorrow was when their depleting store of tobacco ran out.

"...and there followed a period of depression that amounted almost to mourning. But the desire to smoke was so strong that before long experiments were begun to find a substitute."

     The way the men used what they had to make their conditions as livable as possible reminds me of a small village that has to work its way up to become a civilization and eventually a city. It almost seems possible that, given the time and necessities, the men could have made that small piece of island habitable.

     When three months had passed with no sign of relief, the men gave up trying to sound optimistic. This is evident when one of the men writes in his journal: "There is no point in deceiving ourselves any longer."