Question

What do the details about the length of the Arctic day add to the story? Please respond in three to five complete sentences, including specific lines from the excerpt to support your answer.
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad—cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.

As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closer—so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.

At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogs back in the traces, Bill said:

"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us alone."

"They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sympathized.

They spoke no more until camp was made.

Answer 1

The details of the length of the day add a sence of timeliness and limitations. When story's exist outside of time they are just random excerpts but once it has time it can begin to have a sence of actuality. Once it is grounded in time it gives more meaning to what's going on because everything has to be kept on a schedule so everything that happens is important. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three o'clock. This shows how very short the day is and how very important everything that you can squeeze in is. it shows their limitation so everything that gets done is more impressive.