Endurance, Part V- Chapters 1-3, Literary Term- Concrete Details

The first three chapters of Part V begin with the crew arriving on land; a crew of five men is instructed to find a location where they can set up a more secure campsite. The crew returns with news of a location so they crew sets out for this new campsite. The crew made ready the James Caird to sail to South Georgia with a crew of five men. After days of suffering from a blizzard the preparations were made and the Caird sailed on April 24, 1916.


"But it heralded a change in weather, for within a quarter hour the wind had moved from the south to the southwest and quickly risen in force from breeze, to gale, to storm, then hurricane." This quote I found on page 182 shows how unpredictable the weather can be in the ocean. This is important because if further shows how hard it is to survive in Antarctica where the crew has been stranded. This weather reminds me of the weather in Indiana because the weather here is always changing and never predictable.


When the crew arrives to the new campsite on page 181 the camp is described as, "a fairly sheltered spit of beach, about 150 yards long and 30 yards wide, some 7 miles along the coast to the west." This passage is one of the multiple examples of concrete details in this book. "150 yards long a 30 yards wide" are exact measurements which show that the events actually took place. Other ways the book uses concrete details to prove it is non fiction is dates, times, and distances (i.e. miles traveled in a day).