Barbara Sharp

Relating Crisis and Tragedy in Exploration: When's It Appealing?

Journeying to places unknown and possibly dangerous seems to be a source of excitement and fascination for those persons who actually make the trip, but reading of their troubles or watching their crisis unfold onscreen is sometimes a source of excitement and fascination for the general public. For example, in the last thirty years, the television and movie industry have presented the events of the Apollo 13 space mission in various formats, much like texts relative to the Scott expedition found in Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration are written in different genre. Scott's journals are representative of nonfiction since they contain factual information that is written as the expedition is in progress, and similarly, the television coverage of the Apollo 13 troubles is somewhat comparative in genre since the crisis was broadcast as it occurred. On the other end of the genre spectrum, Beryl Bainbridge's, The Birthday Boys might be compared to the Hollywood version of Apollo 13, to some degree, as the movie and book are both created using notes, interviews, and imagination; each have added melodrama and fictional dialogue created for effect. It seems the purpose of an exploratory mission, how this event is conveyed, and when it reaches the public contributes to audience appeal; their perception is affected by which genre in literature or which onscreen presentation style is used.

Learning of the precarious situation that the astronauts on Apollo 13 were faced with produced great interest for the general public, but it was the ability to follow every progressive moment of their predicament that held the public's attention to their televisions. The plight of Scott's polar expedition, on the other hand, is tracked through his journal and not made publicly aware until long after it was over. The latter is deemed as a "disaster" caused by a "misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken" (Spufford, 321), while the former is deemed a "triumphant failure"(Apollo 13). Interestingly, at the time it was launched, the Apollo 13 mission was not regarded as important in the eyes of the general public because there was no longer an element of competition since the United States had already "beat the Russians to the moon" (Apollo 13); however, the motivation for Scott and his men was competitive in nature as they were trying to reach the South Pole before the Amundsen expedition. In their present time, feelings of national pride probably produced public enthusiasm within respective sectors of Scott's and Amundsen's individual countries; but ironically, the expedition that fails becomes the one that is remembered and retold in various ways. The purpose of each expedition was no longer relevant to audience appeal because the journeys themselves became the focus.

Almost everyone turned his or her attention to the ongoing news reports of the Apollo 13 crisis even though much of the reporting included dry, scientific analysis. It is this straightforward, narrative style of reporting that parallels Scott's journals. The general intention of both formats is to relate information without giving way to superfluous emotional commentary. In fact, Scott's journals were probably initially written with the intent to record weather, health, and other related conditions as a reference for future expeditions. Because Scott was personally involved, of course the journals are slanted to reflect his perception of the conditions, and as their situation worsened, so does the tone in his language. For example, on Monday, February 27, Scott reports, "Desperately cold last night [. . .]. Some suffering from cold feet, but all got good rest (107); then, as the men's health began rapidly deteriorating, the shift in tone becomes evident; on Saturday, March 10 he reports, "Things steadily downhill. Oates' foot worse. He [. . .] must know that he can never get through" (113). Although this tonal shift characterizes the author's declining spirit, it still retains an objective quality; that is, Scott's remarks remain fact-based and written in a somewhat matter-of-fact style. This change in tone coincides with that of the newscasters during the seven-day coverage of the Apollo 13 crisis. The television news report that explained "while the astronauts appear to have enough oxygen to keep them alive, one thing they have too much of, is carbon dioxide" (Apollo 13), is similar in tone as Scott's February 27^th journal entry. Each report has a balance of negative and positive information. By the sixth day of the Apollo 13 crisis, reports like the one stating that "in order to enter the atmosphere safely, the crew must aim for a corridor of just two-and-a-half degrees wide [because] if they're too steep, they'll incinerate [. . .], [and] if they're to shallow, they'll skip off the atmosphere like a rock ricocheting off a pond" (Apollo 13), may sound grim, but like Scott's March 10^th journal entry, it still remains fact-based.

Here, audience appeal is credited to modern technology; the public felt a kinship to the Apollo crew because of the instant television news reports. On the other hand, although news of the Scott expedition was probably shared with the public as soon as the tragedy was discovered, the public could not share in the men's plight as it happened. Feelings of empathy are much stronger when shared immediately. It seems the knowledge of the deaths of Scott and his men prior to his journal's publication, diminished interest in reading about the expedition; whereas, because humans tend to thrive on suspense, the unknown outcome of the Apollo 13's seven-day ordeal generated tremendous attention.

Certain doom and tragic potential have a way of eliciting the imagination so that the desire to retell each event with added dimension captures the attention of literary minds. While fiction may be able to captivate audiences with imaginative scenarios and dramatic effects, relating actual events from a historical perspective adds realism. In literature, Aspley Cherry-Garrard's, The Worst Journey in the World falls in the same genre range as a History-channel documentary or PBS video special on the Apollo 13 mission.

Documentaries such as Apollo 13: For the Record or Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back reveal the crisis of the space crew from the memories and words of the astronauts themselves, similar to the written memoir by Cherry-Garrard. In each format, as the events are retold in hindsight, the reflective tone creates emotional depth and personal intimacy between the people who lived the experience and the audience. For instance, when Cherry-Garrard writes, "I am not going to pretend that this was anything but a ghastly journey made bearable and even pleasant to look back upon by the qualities of my two companions who have gone" (74), a reader is able to connect with his emotions because it is sparked by memory. The audience is able to empathize with the author because memory-induced feelings are common occurrences, universally shared by human beings.

Because memoirs, like documentaries, are put together after an experience, time is favorable. There is not only time to organize data and recall memories, there is also time to compose, revise, edit, and reedit the product for greater quality. Certainly, even a talented writer such as Cherry-Garrard felt the benefits of having time to add some personal style to his literary pieces. In the section of Cherry-Garrard's, The Worst Journey in the World that is included in the Ice anthology, he starts by describing the scene of a party to celebrate "a day [that] comes only once a year" (61). Sometime during this author's brief recounting, the reader connects with him and the other men on the expedition as this scenario instantly creates a cultural bond; celebrating is common to almost every culture.

Apollo 13, for instance, is a celebratory movie in the sense that its popularity is manifested in the astronaut's safe return to earth, even though the mission itself failed. American audiences are attracted by the historical notoriety of a near-fatal mission and drawn in by the dramatic essence that a Hollywood movie offers. Although the outcome of this space mission was widely known to most Americans over the age of thirty even before the movie's release, the real attraction seemed to be based on wanting to experience the emotional sensations of this incident, whether for the first time or not. Scripts are written so that the re-enactment has the affect of looking real; it creates the illusion that the occurrences on screen really happened as it appears to the audience. It is the emotions that the actors portray that pull the audience in.

Reading or watching real-life exploration adventures are more popular with audiences if added personal dimensions pull them into the lives of the people that were there. Fiction, it seems, creates even closer bonds between an audience and the characters in a book or movie as intimate scenes of imaginative dialogue can add sentimentality. In The Birthday Boys, for instance, Beryl Bainbridge gives the men on Scott's expedition an inner identity as she breathes life back into them by giving each a voice in a chapter of her novel. Oates, the narrator of the chapter included in the Ice anthology, is seen by an audience from a completely different perspective from Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World or Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals. Indeed, although Bainbridge ascribes Oates' perspective, her supposition of his character personalizes him to the audience in a way the two nonfiction pieces could not. When Bainbridge allows Oates to relate his inner thoughts about how he feels, or moreover, "that [he] didn't know what to feel" about his "inclusion" with the group (358), the reader can connect with this psychological dilemma. The human tendency to wonder about social standing and relational issues is universal in society. By using this psychosocial condition, the author bridges any gap between the speaker and the reader thus facilitating the appeal of the book.

Fear and anxiety are parts of the human psyche that people try to control in real-life situations, so relating events where they are prevalent seems to give audiences a way to feel these emotions in the safety zone of their home or neighborhood movie theatre. Fear produces a rush of adrenaline, and for some people, watching or reading about other people's crisis experiences is the only way they want to produce this feeling. When Edgar Allan Poe wrote his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, he centers the tone on the element of fear. Poe connects the outer world of an exploration to the South Pole with the inner world of an exploration into the human mind. Outer fearful adventures are faceted with the turmoil of inner anxiety and fear. For instance, when Pym tries to follow Peters "down over the edge of [a] precipice" that was "nearly perpendicular throughout its whole extent" (Poe 164), his mind "struggled not to think" as it explored "all imagined horrors" that manifest from a fear of falling, "to picture [. . .] the sickness, the dizziness, and the last struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the rushing and headlong descent" (Poe165). Poe describes the process of Pym's fear with explicit detail in the same manner he describes Peters descent down the precipice in the previous paragraph. Without sharing Pym's fear, the account of Peters climb would be of little interest to the reader as it has no emotional value. By giving the reader a visual picture of the active scene and the natural mental processes affixed in human nature, the reader is more apt to connect with the characters and thus find the story more inviting.

Fiction seems to be the genre of choice for people interested in exploration. Unfortunately, it seems that people today are less interested in exploring the outer world as individual endeavors have become a major focus in our society. Because "the life of stories is just another metaphor" (Spufford 326), stories of exploration do not have the same connective power they may have once had. For instance, the interest in space exploration has fallen and with it the interest in reading about it. It no longer "makes good propaganda" or "prompts reticent passion in the passionately reticent" (Spufford 326-27). If society loses interest in space exploration, even fictional accounts will no longer be appealing.

Works Cited

Apollo 13. Dir. Ron Howard. Perf. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. MCA Universal, 1995.

Bainbridge, Beryl. The Birthday Boys. Ice: Stories of Survival From Polar Exploration. Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. 345-68.

Cherry-Garrard, Apsley. The Worst Journey in the World. Ice: Stories of Survival From Polar Exploration. Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. 59-100.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Related Tales. New York: Oxford, 1988.

Scott, Robert Falcon. Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals. Ice: Stories of Survival From Polar Expedition. Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. 101-117.

Spufford, Frank. I May Be Some Time. Ice: Stories of Survival From Polar Exploration. Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. 285-326.