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Copywork
About This Passage
This closing paragraph is the chapter’s moral and rhetorical climax, and a study in self-justification. Watch the movement: a captain’s sober caution (‘the necessity of returning’) gives way to the narrator’s long, clause-heavy defense of pressing on, then to open contempt — ‘bursting with indignation at the timid and ill-timed suggestions of our commander.’ He admits, in the final periodic sentence, that ‘unfortunate and bloody events’ arose from his advice, yet immediately claims ‘gratification’ at serving science. Copying it reveals how Poe lets a narrator both confess guilt and excuse it in a single breath, and how a long, accumulating sentence can perform the very ambition — and evasion — it describes.
These considerations began to impress upon Captain Guy the necessity of returning, and he spoke of it frequently. For my own part, confident as I was of soon arriving at land of some description upon ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how the schooner forces its way south through cracking ice into open water; how, past the Antarctic circle, the air and sea grow milder against all expectation; how the crew loses Peter Vredenburgh overboard and passes a colossal iceberg; how a giant white bear storms the boat until Dirk Peters kills it with one stroke; how the crew lands on Bennet's Isle and finds a carved prow; and how, with fuel low and scurvy spreading, Captain Guy resolves to turn back while the narrator urges him onward, later confessing 'bloody events' followed. Pause where the chapter's wonder is most shadowed by danger and explain why.
Discussion Questions
- Past the Antarctic circle the sea grows milder and opens, reversing every ordinary expectation about the pole. What might that reversal lead the crew to conclude about what lies ahead, and why might a careful reader hold that conclusion loosely? Use details from the chapter.
- The narrator presses Captain Guy onward despite low fuel and spreading scurvy, and later confesses that 'bloody events' followed from his advice. How should we weigh his ambition against the commander's caution, and why is that judgment a hard one? Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Serving as a means of bringing something about.
Item 2
Completely occupied or absorbed.
Item 3
Quickness in acting; readiness.
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Critical Thinking
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