The Terror

Meat consumption is a central motif that is directly tied to the novel’s depiction of horror. Without meat, the men cannot survive, only for them in the end to become meat themselves—whether to the Tuunbaq, or each other in the case of Hickey’s mutineers. In the beginning, the men consume the meat harvested, processed, and packed in England, which was then shipped thousands of miles to preserve the illusion of abundance even at the edge of the world. The officers’ dinners, with their roasts and carefully served cuts, represent the cultural confidence that English civilization can extend anywhere, even into the Arctic. However, these provisions are tainted. Historically and in Simmons’s retelling, much of the canned meat supplied to the Franklin Expedition is contaminated, poorly sealed, or spoiled. The men suffer from scurvy, food poisoning, and the creeping horror of food that looks intact but carries hidden rot. The empire’s attempt to master the Arctic through logistics collapses when its rations turn against the men. What was meant to preserve life accelerates decay.

While Irving at first suspects the fresh meat he finds Silence eating in the cable locker is from the bodies of the men previously killed by the Tuunbaq, it’s revealed that it’s from the animals the Tuunbaq is bringing her. The only characters who consume human flesh are the “monsters”: The Tuunbaq, Hickey, and the latter’s followers. The Arctic, as depicted in the Inuit worldview integrated into the novel, is where animals offer themselves to hunters who treat them with respect. Since Silence and the other Inuit have not transgressed, the environment provides for and sustains them. Meanwhile, for the crew of the expedition, the animals are absent. As Crozier reflects regarding the situation: “By mid-July the water and opening floes should be teeming with life […] This summer, for the second year in a row, almost nothing living moved across the ice” (731). They are not deemed worthy and so do not receive.