The bothersome details of the world: Richard Byrd, little America and the problem of retreat

• Published in: Journal for Cultural Research
• Main Author: Badmington, Neil
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis (Routledge) 2017
• Subjects: PN Literature (General); Antarctic; South Pole; Byrd; Little America; Antarc*; Antarctica; South pole
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/69307/; https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2017.1370491; https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/69307/8/The%20Bothersome%20Details%20of%20the%20World%20ORCA%20pre-publication%20version%20July%202015%20--%20Neil%20Badmington.pdf

In 1934, Admiral Richard E. Byrd retreated from his crew at the remote Little America encampment in Antarctica to an even more isolated setting: a small underground shack on ‘the dark immensity of the Ross Ice Barrier, on a line between Little America and the South Pole’. Byrd remained there in solitude for a little over four months and later wrote about his ordeal in Alone. This essay considers Byrd’s account alongside his earlier Antarctic writings in order to ask what they reveal about the difficulties of retreating and maintaining critical distance from ‘civilisation’.