Between the Ice Floes: Imaging Gender, Fear and Safety in Antarctic Literature for Young Adults

Abstract

Ever since first imagined as a site of adventure, discovery and conquest, Antarctica, the southernmost continent, has continued to act as a powerful geographical metaphor for physical, mental and emotional transformation and transubstantiation. The discursive representation of its desolate, ice-bound landscape and its iconic creatures in image and text is a familiar one. The transmedial representation of the heroic explorer walking out into the white unknown in search of international fame and glory, and ultimate death, is even more a familiar. Antarctic adventure narratives for young adult readers have routinely centred on the male hero as the continent's sole mythic figure. The gendering of the ice, and society's growing concern with environmental sustainability, and the ethics of ecological ownership and resource depletion has resulted in a reframing of this gendered determinism. As a consequence this sub-genre of adventure literature is shifting to accommodate this new environmental perspective. The outcome is a strategic rearranging of heroic types and ironic critique of the passions and utopian ideals informing early narratives of Antarctic exploration and discovery.