Sonia Hernandez

February 26, 2002

            Narrowing Parameters     

            When asked to explain what distinguishes one literary genre from another, aficionados of a particular genre sometimes answer, “I know it when I see it.” It may be true that some devotees develop a sixth sense in identifying a literary work as belonging to a specific genre. However,  uncommunicated intuitive knowledge does little to either define fledgling genres or distinguish a breakaway genre, such as exploration from the similar or closely related “parent” genres of travel and adventure.

            Genres provide an interpretive framework for readers. The better defined a genre, the less likely a reader will mistake one genre for another and the more likely a selection will match a person’s expectations. In order for literature of exploration to be considered a distinct genre or field of study, boundaries or ideal parameters must exist that define what constitutes literature of exploration and excludes what does not (Mann 3). The provisional distinctions made in the syllabus for the course on Literature of Space and Exploration include a journey, which is usually arduous or prohibited, to a distant place unlikely to be visited by individuals like the author. The traveler will need to overcome a change in environment and various challenges to comfort, progress or survival. These provisional distinctions afford a broad foundation from which to begin to differentiate between exploration and other closely related genres.   In an attempt to distinguish exploration literature from adventure and travel literature, I propose that two additional guidelines be added: The journey should have a purpose or goal which is stated at the onset and, the intent of the author should be a consideration in genre designation.

            According to Webster’s Dictionary to explore is “ to examine carefully; investigate” or “to travel in order to learn...”  Since it is difficult to learn without examining carefully, the two definitions are not mutually exclusive. Implicit in this definition is that the traveler  will have at least one goal or purpose for the excursion.  The purpose need not be of a scientific nature, although personally that is what I would prefer. Christopher Columbus’ aim was to discover another route to the Orient in order to facilitate trade. At a minimum, one goal would include discovery and investigation.

            In adventure literature, exciting events are more important than character development and sometimes theme. Rather than embarking on a journey with a “let’s see what happens” attitude, a explorer focuses on his goal.  The explorer’s experiences with the environment may become the reader’s primary focus, but for the explorer, these occurrence are secondary and occur in pursuit of the goal. In Alone, Richard Byrd recounts his solitary stay in an underground station in the Arctic. While most of the class discussion of Byrd’s experiences focused on his personal comments, his evaluation of his changes in personal habits and state of mind, it is clear from Byrd’s journal entries, that his primary focus is his work. The purpose of the journey rather than the experiences or events which occur in pursuit of the goal is the end in itself.

            In contrast, Pym, the protagonist in Edgar Allen Poe’s only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, has an ardent longing for the wild adventures incident to the life of a navigator” (18).  Pym’s visions are of “ ship wreck and famine; of death or captivity...” (18). He stows away on the whaling ship the Grampus in the hopes of fulfilling his “long-cherished visions of travel”(20).  Pym travels because he seeks action and adventure. Because Pym has no purpose or goal other than fantasy fulfillment for his pilgrimage, the focus of the narrative becomes almost exclusively a series of the incredible events. The novel could be read as a collection of short stories given the cohesiveness of a novel through the use of the same main character.

            The additional criteria of a purposeful goal would not reduce the exploration genre to historical accounts or fictionalized narratives of  past expeditions. In Edgar Rice Burrough’s Princess of Mars, Carter’s initial purpose was to discover gold (1). In Red Mars, a team of colonists blasts off into space with the goal of terraforming Mars.  Ursula Le Guin’s protagonist in The Left Hand of Darkness, wants to understanding the exercise of power on another planet (7).  Whether the work is one of fiction or non-fiction, a purposeful, planned journey distinguishes the account as exploration literature rather than action or adventure literature in which the journey occurs through accident, for thrills or excitement or merely for a change of pace.

            One function of travel, adventure, and exploration literature is to allow the reader to enjoy vicariously the wonders of distant places and the events and circumstances which occur during the trek. In American, lifestyles are, on the average, much more sedentary and comfortable than that of people in the past and in many parts of today’s world. The popularity of extreme sports, extreme diversions and extreme television programs seems to indicate that passive  reading of the exploits of others may no longer be satisfactory entertainment.  A vacationer can experience the hardships and physical rigors of an arctic expedition, or take a “bare-foot cruise” duplicating, for a short time, the life of a sailor of Poe’s era aboard a sailing ship.  Even a vacation in outer space is within reach of someone willing to pay twenty million dollars. Granted, the dangers of these excursions are well anticipated and  highly controlled, a luxury past travelers did not enjoy.

            In addition, “reality” based television programs  which challenge the stamina of physically fit and extremely photogenic individuals have become extremely popular. Each major network now carries one such program in which a group of contestants is placed in a situation which falls within the original parameters defining literature of exploration and parallels Pym’s circumstances. A group is stranded in a remote, isolated, primitive setting reminiscent of Pym aboard the Grampus or on the island. More recent contests provide participants with an insufficient amount of food, water and shelter similar to Pym experiences. In order to avoid being eliminated from the contest, hardships must be overcome, endurance proven and political and survival strategies devised as Pym was forced to do aboard the Grampus.  Should an account written by any of these individuals, the space tourist, the television contestant, the bare foot cruiser, or the arctic vacationer be considered literature of exploration?  Would the story of an athlete who decides to scale a Himalayan mountain peak simply for the experience because “it is there”, also fall within the genre of exploration?  Without a stated meaningful purpose, without discovery and investigation, the story could become, at worst, simply a personal travelogue, the literary equivalent of a picture postcard or home movies of summer vacation or a rehash of personal exploits; at best, an action adventure tale.

            Texts frequently overlap several genres. It is not unusual for a book or short story to be labeled, for example, as an historical romance, a gothic mystery or fantasy-adventure. The author, through the use of language and emphasis on words and narrated incidents signals his intent and preference for how the work should be categorized.

            In the anthology Ice, several authors including Apsley Cherry-Gerrard, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Francis Spufford all describe journeys which are dangerous and have situations which are similar to events in Poe’s novel.  In I May be Some Time, Spufford describes a night in which the ship, Terra Nova, is a floating plank surrounded by an air bubble in a hurricane force wind (Willis, 286). Shackleton in South, recounts drifting without sail or rudder for months on an ice sheet which vibrates and cracks with each impact from another passing floe (258-259). Shackelton also describes a night in which the ice cracked leaving him standing astride two pieces of separating ice and watching a nearby tent being pulled apart by the same process (266).  All these accounts are similar to  Pym’s being adrift in a hurricane tossed sea on the remains of the brig which he describes as a floating log (91).

            But it is Cherry-Gerrard’s account of his experiences in search of the Emperor penguin which has the most in common with Pym. In The Worst Journey in the World, Cherry-Gerrard repeatedly refers to being surrounded by darkness ,toiling in the dark, being unable to distinguish day from night (64), the effects of darkness alone (65) and compounded by fog (80) terror, fear and despair coupled with the anxiety of falling into one of the many crevasses in the area.  When describing the experience of falling into the a crevasse (71), Cherry- Gerrard actually borrows a favorite Poe description, referring to crevasses as bottomless pits (81).    

            Yet, despite Cherry-Gerrard’s use of the same dark imagery as Poe uses in describing similar events, only Poe’s novel is described in the syllabus as falling within the gothic genre. After reading the two accounts, there was no doubt in my mind, that Pym belongs in the gothic genre while The Worst Journey in the World does not. The difference in style accounts for the different genre classification. The choice of style signals each author’s intent and preference for how the text should be classified.

            Cherry-Gerrard’s intent is to recount and inform the reader of events which occurred on his hunt for penguin eggs. He admits the journey was ghastly made pleasurable only by the company of his companions (75). He reassures the reader he is not “trying to exaggerate” (74).  Matter-of-factly, Cherry-Gerrard describes events which are truly horrific, but rather than dwell on the emotional upheaval which was experienced, he chooses to focus the reader’s attention on the practices he developed to overcome both fear and pain. What he directs his and the reader’s attention to is the completion of the mission (70).  The reader bears the responsibility for any emotional interpretation which occurs.

            Poe intends to tell a tale which plays on the readers darker emotions by describing, emphasizing and exaggerating horrific events in order to heighten emotional sensations. Poe takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster by alternating descriptions of traumatic events with scenes of relative calm. His accounts of being buried alive(25), the dangerous politics of mutiny (50-57) ,killings (74) and the destruction of his ship are alternated with periods of sleep (25) or unconsciousness or journal style entrees detailing events in a relatively straight-forward manner (69-72).

            Poe, as well as the several authors in Ice, refer frequently to horror, fear, terror or despair, death or dying.  The authors in Ice concentrate on the events which give rise to these feelings and dwell only minimally upon the emotion itself., Cherry-Gerrard describes a treacherous climb “that would have tried Job’s patience” in an area surrounded by deep crevasses as “exciting” (91-94) He says “And always we got toward the Emperor penguins...” (94). Spufford explains that although the men had “perfect comprehension of their peril...”, the words death and drowning we banished and relaced with “interesting” and “exciting” (291).

            In contrast Poe focuses the readers attention on Pym’s emotions.  A conversation is enough to fill Pym  “with incredible dread” (8). A scream is filled with the “intense agony of terror” (11). Others around him are completely filled with feelings of terror and despair and excruciating dismay (16-17) All this before the true journey starts. Poe’s extensive use of superlatives, prolonged account of traumatic events and high-charged feelings, has  the effect, at least on me, of  minimizing the journey. The feelings of terror, and horror are what I remember about the novel.  The author uses this novel as an opportunity to capitalizes on the public’s interest in the experiences of recent Polar expeditions while at the same time doing what he does best; tell a fantastic yarn filled with the horror and gothic trappings. Poe’s intent is to tell a scary, spooky story that would sell. He was after horror and gothic adventure, not exploration.

            As he does in so many of his works, Poe uses supernatural events, devices familiar to the gothic genre. But the use the paranormal or supernatural alone in a story is not sufficient evidence to believe an author intended the story to fall in the gothic genre. Surreal events, ghosts, animated corpses upon which carrion feeding birds alight can be incorporated into exploration literature. The important distinction is how the elements of horror or fantasy are presented within the story.  Supernatural events and distortions when presented as dreams, illusions caused by the environment, such as a mirage, or hallucinations as effects of physical stressors such as starvation or drugs could be considered as a realistic, or at least plausible reaction to the exploration experience.

            In Ice, several authors describe a situations which could have easily been considered standard gothic material. The authors remain firmly in the exploration genre because of their explanation for these events.  Although Cherry-Gerrard feels as though he is surrounded by ghosts as he approaches fog-bound Terror Point one night (82), he does not say ghosts are actually there. Shackleton explains the waxing and waning of icebergs and mountains as illusions caused by a combination of wind, fog and light (258). Cherry-Gerrard describes “optical delusions” in which depressions in the snow appeared to be elevations (68). Spufford tells of dog encampments which shrink to biscuit tins as one approaches because of the effects of light (300). Poe’s novel leaves exploration and lands firmly in gothic country Poe presents surreal events such as the ghost ship (99-103) with animated corpses which serve as carrion for feasting birds, as actually having occurred.                               

             Theoretically, the genre of exploration could encompass such diverse texts as Homer’s The Odyssey  ,Spencer’s The Faerie Queen, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the anthology  Ice and Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Newcomers to the genre, both readers and contributors, may feel exploration is a catch-all genre and simply lose interest. Adding additional criteria to differentiate exploration from travel and adventure while the parameters for this new field of study are still fluid would help better define the genre and guide interested readers and contributors.

 

Works Cited

Byrd, Richard. “Alone.” Willis, Clint, ed. Ice.  NY: Thunder Mouth’s             Press, 1999

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars. 1912. NY: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1963.

Cherry-Gerrard, Apsley. “The Worst Journey in the World.” Willis,             Clint, ed. Ice.  NY: Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1999

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. NY: Berkeley             Publishing, 1969.

Mann,George, ed. The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science             Fiction.NY:Carroll and Graf Publishers,2001.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.             1838. NY,NY: Penguin Books, 1999.

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Red Mars.  NY: Bantam Books, 1993.

Shackleton, Ernest Sir. “South.” Willis, Clint, ed. Ice.  NY: Thunder             Mouth’s Press, 1999.

Spufford, Francis. “I May Be Some .” Willis, Clint, ed. Ice.  NY:             Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1999.

Willis, Clint, ed. Ice.  NY: Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1999.