Main Themes

 

 Main Themes

 

 

The main theme of the book isprobably persistence and the will to survive. The way that Nando and the othersrefuse to give up despite of loosing their friends and family members. The waythey figure out clever ways of surviving in that hostile environment. They atethe flesh of the dead people in order to survive and they risk their lives manytimes to try and find the tail of the plain to get the batteries from it sothey could start the radio up and call for help.

  I guess you can say hope is a part of the willto survive. Some may have lost the hope but not all of them. Even after seeingplane after plane flying over searching for them but they never saw them. Then theyfound out that the search for them had been stopped because there was no waythat they could be alive.  Nando neverlooses his hope of getting out of those mountains and seeing his remainingfamily members. He is the one that wanted to just try to walk out of themountains and find help that way. He also said ‘’if I die I will die walking’’.Even when his mother and sister had passed he never gave in. Nando realized thatthey would have to eat the dead to get strong enough to climb their way out. Theywalked for ten whole days until they were found be a shepherd that made aemergency response unit aware and they came and saved them.

 

 

Another important theme isnature, or rather the threat nature is in these situations. The group facedextremely cold temperatures and they only had summer clothing. In addition tothe cold they had to deal with the thin air of the altitude they were in. Theyhad blizzards and an snow avalanche that took eight of their lives. Another thingthat made their lives harder on the mountain was that some of them were hurtbadly from the crash and couldn’t walk and therefor couldn’t help out.

 

 

The last theme is team spiritand leadership. The group would probably not have survived if it had not beenfor the team work and Nandos leadership. They group worked together in treatingthe hurt and they of course kept each other warm in the night.