The central conflict in Endurance pits the ship’s crew against the natural world, with the extreme and at times alien environment of Antarctica amplifying the dangers that nature always poses to humanity. However, Lansing also draws attention to the beauty of the Antarctic wilderness, which is often inseparable from its harshness.

Wind, water, and a landscape mostly devoid of life all threatened the crew’s survival at various times, yet the men repeatedly found themselves as much drawn to their surroundings as repelled by them. Lansing’s description of Elephant Island is a good example: “When the sun did shine, the island became a place of rugged beauty, with the sunlight shimmering off the glaciers, producing indescribably vivid colors that were constantly changing” (259). Despite the overall danger of the environment, Lansing implies, sights such as this actually contributed to the crew’s survival by boosting morale. 

Other aspects of the men’s surroundings were merely threatening. In Lansing’s account, one of the most alien elements of the Antarctic environment is the phenomenon of polar night, which merely exacerbated the sense of isolation and desolation in the Weddell Sea among the stranded crew. Previous expeditions had experienced low moods during the sunless Antarctic winter, and their depression, despair, loss of concentration, and melancholy serve as reminders that this is not an environment most humans are naturally adapted to.