The Worst Journey in the World

The Worst Journey in the World becomes the accidental hinge between Bernadette’s planned return home and her journey to Antarctica. In Miami, the book first serves as an improvised napkin; on the airport tram, its subject and back-cover message prompt her to change course and continue south.

An Accidental Object in Miami

After flying to Miami with a furious speech rehearsed in her mind, Bernadette buys a Cinnabon and sits eating as trams pass. She realizes she has forgotten napkins, and the icing has covered both hands and her face. Asking a woman to unzip a vest pocket, she finds not the handkerchief she expected but a book about Antarctica. She pulls it out and wipes her hands and face on its clean pages.

The scene gives the book an initially mundane, even sacrilegious use: its pages absorb the mess of the pastry. That physical accident places the volume in Bernadette’s hands at precisely the point when she is meant to buy passage home. The object is not introduced through a deliberate search for guidance; it emerges from the pocket where the handkerchief was supposed to be.

The Antarctic Message

Once aboard the tram, Bernadette looks down at the book on her lap and identifies it as The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the few survivors of Captain Scott’s failed attempt to reach the South Pole. Its back cover reads, “People don’t go to Antarctica. They’re called to Antarctica.”

The book’s subject and the printed sentence recast the destination from an option on a travel itinerary into something like a summons. The timing makes the words consequential: Bernadette has just been on her way to the ticket counter to buy passage home, but now sits with an Antarctic book in her lap as the tram carries her toward the main terminal.

The Turn Toward Antarctica

When the tram reaches the main terminal, Bernadette does not get off. She goes to Antarctica instead. The book therefore marks the concrete pivot in her decision: its appearance, its Antarctic subject, and its back-cover message interrupt the return-home plan and precede her departure.

The episode also gives the book a double role. It is first a practical object recruited to clean icing from Bernadette’s hands and face, then a textual prompt that helps redirect her journey. The abruptness of the change—from ticket counter to Antarctica—makes the ordinary volume carry unusual narrative weight without making the decision seem carefully planned.