The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland
Antarctica hosts access to the tangible past, with ice-cores working as an archive of the earth’s climate memory. However, our constructed cultural memories of Antarctica are more difficult to read, and our records of the past were written with an eye to their legacy for the future. Rebecca Hunt’s 2...
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ftunivsydneyojs:oai:ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au:article/10958 2023-12-24T10:10:45+01:00 The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland Hewenn, Jessica 2016-07-07 application/pdf https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958 eng eng Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958/10614 https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958 Copyright (c) 2016 Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies; Vol. 21 No. 1 (2016); 94-105 1327-8746 Rebecca Hunt Everland Antarctica J. M. Barrie Peter Pan Robert Falcon Scott Terra Nova expedition Scott of the Antarctic neo-Victorian fiction neo-Victorian historical novel Antarctic literature Antarctic ecocriticism humanlessness info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2016 ftunivsydneyojs 2023-11-29T12:41:19Z Antarctica hosts access to the tangible past, with ice-cores working as an archive of the earth’s climate memory. However, our constructed cultural memories of Antarctica are more difficult to read, and our records of the past were written with an eye to their legacy for the future. Rebecca Hunt’s 2014 novel, Everland, critiques Antarctic exploration legacy as a way of remembering and learning from the past. Her novel juxtaposes two expeditions, set a century apart, and depicts time as frozen through the use of repetitions and doppelgängers. I contend that this challenge to cultural memory is connected specifically with Robert Falcon Scott’s legacy, and particularly the link between Scott and J. M. Barrie’s eternal youth, Peter Pan. Scott is represented as a Lost Boy of the Neverland of Antarctica, and this problematic conception of Antarctica itself as a Neverland of the Victorian Imperial era is part of our cultural memory of the continent. While exploring the problematisation of legacies of the past raised by Hunt’s novel, I assert that the book exhibits the present historically, pointing to our own legacy left for the future, and indicates the dangers of intentionally ignoring or misremembering the present. I argue that by confronting our cultural memories of Antarctica, we are re-evaluating both Antarctica’s past, and its future. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals online Antarctic The Antarctic |
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Open Polar |
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The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals online |
op_collection_id |
ftunivsydneyojs |
language |
English |
topic |
Rebecca Hunt Everland Antarctica J. M. Barrie Peter Pan Robert Falcon Scott Terra Nova expedition Scott of the Antarctic neo-Victorian fiction neo-Victorian historical novel Antarctic literature Antarctic ecocriticism humanlessness |
spellingShingle |
Rebecca Hunt Everland Antarctica J. M. Barrie Peter Pan Robert Falcon Scott Terra Nova expedition Scott of the Antarctic neo-Victorian fiction neo-Victorian historical novel Antarctic literature Antarctic ecocriticism humanlessness Hewenn, Jessica The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
topic_facet |
Rebecca Hunt Everland Antarctica J. M. Barrie Peter Pan Robert Falcon Scott Terra Nova expedition Scott of the Antarctic neo-Victorian fiction neo-Victorian historical novel Antarctic literature Antarctic ecocriticism humanlessness |
description |
Antarctica hosts access to the tangible past, with ice-cores working as an archive of the earth’s climate memory. However, our constructed cultural memories of Antarctica are more difficult to read, and our records of the past were written with an eye to their legacy for the future. Rebecca Hunt’s 2014 novel, Everland, critiques Antarctic exploration legacy as a way of remembering and learning from the past. Her novel juxtaposes two expeditions, set a century apart, and depicts time as frozen through the use of repetitions and doppelgängers. I contend that this challenge to cultural memory is connected specifically with Robert Falcon Scott’s legacy, and particularly the link between Scott and J. M. Barrie’s eternal youth, Peter Pan. Scott is represented as a Lost Boy of the Neverland of Antarctica, and this problematic conception of Antarctica itself as a Neverland of the Victorian Imperial era is part of our cultural memory of the continent. While exploring the problematisation of legacies of the past raised by Hunt’s novel, I assert that the book exhibits the present historically, pointing to our own legacy left for the future, and indicates the dangers of intentionally ignoring or misremembering the present. I argue that by confronting our cultural memories of Antarctica, we are re-evaluating both Antarctica’s past, and its future. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hewenn, Jessica |
author_facet |
Hewenn, Jessica |
author_sort |
Hewenn, Jessica |
title |
The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
title_short |
The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
title_full |
The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
title_fullStr |
The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Legacies and Frozen Time of Antarctica: Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Pan and Rebecca Hunt’s Everland |
title_sort |
legacies and frozen time of antarctica: robert falcon scott, peter pan and rebecca hunt’s everland |
publisher |
Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958 |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica |
op_source |
Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies; Vol. 21 No. 1 (2016); 94-105 1327-8746 |
op_relation |
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958/10614 https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/AJVS/article/view/10958 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2016 Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies |
_version_ |
1786156828619440128 |