Craig Sprowl  

How Poe Captures the Psychological Essence of Exploration in Pym

            The word exploration connotes freedom in the broadest sense.  Exploration is a search; an investigation.  When we imagine an explorer traveling into space, journeying to the Poles, or trekking through the desert, we envisage a kind of freedom.  In exploration, whether external or internal, space is wide open, and there are expanses.  The mere fact that we are exploring an area means that it hasn’t been marked off, delineated, and confined.  Exploration, which is journeying to the unknown, requires of the explorer, who is now outside of their element, to shelter themselves to a much higher degree than if they were still in their normal environment.  We invoke a kind of opposite, and an irony, the further we push into the unknown, the wide open, the barren, and the desolate landscapes.  The further into these environments we travel, the more we must retreat into some kind of cocoon, an increasingly smaller shelter that contains the means to sustain us.  A human’s normal environment is one that contains the whole range of conditions suitable for our survival.  Beside the physical conditions such as proper range of temperature; our normal environment contains the social networks necessary for survival. 

            The edges of our normal environment are marked off by barriers.  Barriers that serve to mark the edges of our habitat could be such things as water, extreme cold, a lack of oxygen in space, or a lack of water in the desert.  Exploration would not be exploration as we know it, if it didn’t involve overcoming the barriers to the forbidden land.  For many readers of the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, inaccurate details, and glaring mistakes act as a barrier to realizing the genius within the text.  Poe adroitly integrates the fundamental nature of exploration into Pym.  The concept of confinement and escape is a major theme of the novel.  The idea of opposites, extremes, and the harshness of those extremes are given skillful treatment by Poe.  Pym may not stand up to modern scrutiny when it involves squaring the novel with our understanding of the South Pole, but Pym’s journey stands out for its accurate portrayal of the conditions of an explorer.  Poe captures the essence of exploration through the use of symbols and themes, and remarkably captures the mind of an explorer through the use of a common language, that reflects the fear, anxiety, and observations of the environment that shares a striking resemblance to the non-fiction accounts of Polar exploration.

            Poe’s character Pym, shares the hazards of exploration with his non-fiction counterparts.  Just like the non-fictional explorers, Pym is faced with untold tragedy and extreme conditions.  Poe’s genius lies in his ability to create a narrative that reflects despair, bleakness, and a person’s inability to help another.  This idea runs rampant throughout the text of Pym, but can also be seen in the non-fictional explorer’s accounts.  Upon Pym’s realization that nothing more is to be gained from the store room, he says, “This discovery, as may be supposed, filled us with despair” (Poe 100).  At the beginning of Pym’s voyage, he makes a futile attempt to escape to the surface of the ship only to find it somehow sealed.  Pym comments, “My sensations were those of extreme horror and dismay.  In vain I attempted to reason on the probable cause of my being thus entombed” (Poe 25).  Realistically Pym reacts to barriers, and imprisonment with frustration and despair.  Although his conditions may be suspect, his reactions to the conditions are very believable.  A common occurrence, for an explorer, in extreme conditions, involves a retreat into himself.  Humans are used to caring for other people and helping them.  When one is faced with elements so severe, that helping someone else is impossible, because all one can do is help themselves; it brings about a feeling of helplessness and guilt.  Pym speaks of his awareness of Augustus’s condition, and his inability to do anything about it.  Pym recalls, “He constantly prayed to be released from his sufferings, wishing for nothing but death” (Poe 101).  Pym continues by reflecting on his inability to affect the situation, “We saw clearly that Augustus could not be saved; that he was evidently dying.  We could do nothing to relieve his sufferings, which appeared to be great” (Poe 102).  The same inner torment can be seen in Robert Scott’s journal where he expresses similar concerns with regard to his mate Oates.  Scott writes concerning Oates, “We cannot help each other, each has enough to do to take care of himself” (Scott 111).  Again, Scott writes about Oates, echoing Pym’s concern for Augustus, “Poor chap! it is too pathetic to watch him; one cannot but try to cheer him up” (Scott 113).  If those passages were interchanged between the novel Pym and Scott’s journal, could one tell?

            Psychological confusion, disorientation, and nightmares are a derivative of isolation and exposure to extreme conditions.  Poe accurately captures these sensations of the human mind operating at the extremes of the environment.  Richard E. Byrd writes in his journal, “The senses were isolated in soundless dark; so, for that matter, was the mind; but one stayed, while the other possessed the flight of a falcon…” (Byrd 145).  Byrd continues, “From the depth of my being would sometimes surge a fierce desire to be projected spectacularly into the living warmths and movements the mind revisited.  Usually the desire had no special focus.  It sought no single thing.  Rather it darted and wavered over a panorama of human aspects – my family at dinner time, the sound of voices in a downstairs room, the cool feeling of rain” (Byrd 145-46).  Another passage in the Byrd text describes a similar thought, “…when this mood goes, I find myself craving change – a look at trees, a rock, a handful of earth, the sound of foghorns, anything belonging to the world of movement and living things” (Byrd 154).  When placed in a desolate environment, isolated, and cutoff from their normal habitat, the mind is desperate to manufacture a more normal environment.  It is almost like someone being placed in an isolation chamber, whereby the mind creates hallucinations of sight and sound.  The character Pym experiences a very similar reaction to that of Robert Byrd.  At one point, Pym and his companions have lashed themselves to the deck of the ship to keep themselves from being washed overboard.  The deck of the ship is like a rolling log on the ocean.  For all intent Pym is alone, because he and his mates are in such a condition that they cannot communicate with each other.  Pym recalls, “Shortly after this period I fell into a state of partial insensibility, during which the most pleasing images floated in my imagination; such as green trees, waving meadows of ripe grain, processions of dancing girls, troops of cavalry, and other fantasies.  I now remember that, in all which passed before my mind’s eye, motion was a predominate idea” (Poe 74).  Pym and Byrd, both shared an imagination, brought on by isolation, of their normal environments. 

            Another symptom of isolation that shows up in both the fiction and non-fiction accounts is reflected in one’s dreams, or maybe nightmares.  In Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s account, The Worst Journey in the World, he notes, “We knew we did sleep, for we heard one another snore, and also we used to have dreams, and nightmares, but we had little consciousness of it, and we were beginning to drop off when we halted on the march” (Cherry-Garrard 73).  Abnormalities of sleep, both in sleep deprivation, and excessive sleep is recounted in the text of Pym as well.  Pym recalls a similar sense of sleep and nightmares.  Pym states, “I fell, in spite of every exertion to the contrary, into a state of profound sleep, or rather stupor. My dreams were of the most terrific description.  Every species of calamity and horror befell me” (Poe 21).  Cherry-Garrard suffers from nightmares and sleep deprivation while Pym also has nightmares, and a disorientating sleep, or excessive sleep. 

            When it comes to describing the landscape and the environment that the explorers find themselves in, once again we find a common language that is very similar between Poe’s fictional account and the non-fiction accounts.  The landscape and environment are extreme, so what we find being described are features not found in our normal environment.  Cherry-Garrard writes, “…we were among the crevasses, with Terror above us, but invisible, somewhere on our left, and the Barrier pressure on our right” (Cherry-Garrard 71).  Cherry-Garrard describes the Knoll and the cliffs of Cape Crozier, “…although they are eight hundred feet high, a sheer precipice falling to the sea” (Cherry-Garrard 79).  Monstrous landscapes with frightful names, concealing terrible life threatening dangers, abound in Cherry-Garrard’s text.  Cherry-Garrard uses the language of extremes in his descriptions, he writes, “The moon was showing a ghastly ragged mountainous edge above us…” (Cherry-Garrard 82).  Cherry-Garrard reveals his feelings, “Now these ice-cliffs are some two hundred feet high, and I felt uncomfortable…” (Cherry-Garrard 93).  The explorer Richard Byrd comments about the landscape, “I watched the sky a long time, concluding that such beauty was reserved for distant, dangerous places…” (Byrd 141).  Byrd speaks of a crevasse, “I could see no bottom.  My guess was that the crevasse was at least several hundred feet deep” (Byrd 142).  The explorer’s landscape is filled with extremes, huge depths and terrifying heights.  The character Pym observes many of the same conditions while on his journey.  Pym uses the language of extremes when speaking about the landscape.  Pym notes, “…we were again stopped by a precipice of immense depth…” (Poe 159).  When Pym is on the island of Tsalal, and concerned with escaping, he is faced by massive chasms.  Pym observes gigantic icebergs of immense dimensions.  Pym comments on various islands he sees after they leave Christmas Harbor; upon observing “Inaccessible Island” he notes, “…and the whole region is sterile…” (Poe 116).  Again, Pym comments on another island named “Nightingale Island,” The ground is irregular and sterile…” (Poe 117).  Although Pym is not describing the Antarctic directly, he does capture the barrenness of the polar landscape.  Poe’s landscape in Pym is complete in capturing desolation, barrenness, monolithic structures, deep crevasses, and bottomless pits. 

            Another commonality in language between the fiction and non-fiction texts is revealed in the use of superlatives when speaking about the conditions being faced.  The conditions are extreme, and the only words big enough to describe what is transpiring are words denoting the edge of our reality.  The human mind is operating on the fringe.  Once again, there are many examples that are so close that one could interchange the text without noticing the difference.  Robert Scott’s journal is rife with superlatives, and extreme statements showing how his mental state is operating at the edge of its normal range.  Scott writes, “The surface was every bit as bad as I expected…” (Scott 102).  Scott’s comments show how conditions escalate to become worse than they were the day before.  Every day it seems a “horrid day” (Scott).  Scott writes, “…the outlook is blacker than ever” (Scott 109).  Cherry-Garrard writes about fellow explorer Bill Wilson, “…but he had never dreamed it was going to be as bad as this” (Cherry-Garrard 78).  Cherry-Garrard, again confesses, “I am not going to pretend that this was anything but a ghastly journey…” (Cherry-Garrard 74).  Pym undergoes a severe journey, one that constantly threatens to take his life.  Like the real explorers, he reveals his tormented mental state.  Pym is wracked with hunger when he states, “We passed the remainder of this night in a state of the most intense mental and bodily anguish that can possibly be imagined” (Poe 87).  Over the course of the novel in Pym, conditions escalate to ever more severe and life threatening.  Pym’s narrative is replete with superlatives; describing the worst conditions imaginable.

            Poe captures the psychological ordeal of exploration by using a language that describes with detail, inner thoughts, fears, and anxieties of an explorer.  But, through the use of symbolism, and themes Poe also makes a statement that reveals the explorer’s world.  One predominant theme throughout the novel of Pym has to do with Pym’s confinement.  Pym goes through a series of imprisonments, and always escapes from that imprisonment.  Odd as it may seem, the theme of imprisonment and confinement relates closely to the real explorer’s world.  The real explorers have to confine themselves to a shelter of some form or another.  Byrd exists in an underground shelter.  Scott and his men take shelter from the elements in their tents, and even that is not enough to ensure their survival.  Even when the explorers are not in their shelters, they are still isolated by their geographical position; they are at the Poles.  Another way in which reality mimics Pym, can be seen the explorers desire to escape from the situation; back into the normal world.  While in Scott’s case, they don’t turn back, they still wish to be out of the severe situation.  In the case of George DeLong, and The Voyage of the Jeanette, they become trapped, and are trying to escape to civilization.

            At the opening of Pym, we find that the character Pym is a member of normal society; he lives in a normal environment, and is surrounded by relatives, all part of his habitat.  Pym lives in a known world and longs for an unexplored world.  As if he were confined, Pym is under threat from his mother, and his maternal grandfather not to leave.  Here we see Pym’s first confinement, and his first escape, by being smuggled aboard the ship Grampus.  Pym is imprisoned in the hold of the ship much longer than he expects, but once Augustus frees him, he has to continue to hide from the rest of the members of the ship.  Once Pym and his companions overcome the opposing party on the ship, the ship is met with a tremendous storm, which leaves Pym a prisoner once again.  Pym now resides on the top deck of the ship, but the ship is now just a hulk floating, and drifting on the ocean.  In fact, if there was any mistaking that Pym was not a prisoner; Poe makes it clear that he is by showing how they must tie themselves to the deck to keep from being washed overboard.  Pym is isolated; he is adrift on the ocean barely existing, and he is a prisoner who has no control over his situation.  Pym views a real life nightmare when he sees the death ship.  The crew, and people aboard the death ship are imprisoned; they were never able to escape.  What promised a means of escape for Pym turned out to be a grim reflection of his own situation.  Pym and Dirk do escape when they are rescued by the British ship the Jane Guy.  Freedom doesn’t last too long in Pym.  When the Jane Guy reaches the island of Tsalal, most of the crew becomes permanently buried by an earthen trap devised by the natives.  Pym and Dirk narrowly escape, and find themselves having to take shelter once again.  Pym and Dirk are finally able to escape the island in a canoe, and from there they journey further south into the unknown.

            Despite the age of the novel Pym, it stands up today because Poe was able to capture the essence of the mind of an explorer.  We can see this through Poe’s choice of language; a language that is remarkably similar to the real explorers journals.  Poe demonstrates an understanding of the psychology of a real explorer through his character Pym.  Through Pym, we see the same fear, anxiety, doubt, hopelessness shared by the real explorers.   Pym observes a similar harsh, and barren landscape that the explorers do.  And Poe uses the theme of imprisonment and confinement to show the reader what the environment of the explorer is like.

 

Works Cited  

Byrd, Richard E. Alone. Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration.  Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 1999.

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

DeLong, George W. The Voyage of the Jeanette.  Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration.  Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 1999.

Scott, Robert Falcon. Scott’s Last Expedition: The Journals. Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration.  Ed. Clint Willis. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 1999.

Poe, Edgar Allan. Arthur Gordon Pym.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.