Rarick concludes that the members of the Donner party were neither heroes for surviving nor scoundrels for the manner in which they did so. He writes: “They were Everyman. Often, adventure stories feature larger-than-life figures, grand Victorian explorers or indomitable generals or pith-helmeted naturalists resolutely seeking some wondrous discovery. ... Such quests have much to teach us, but so too does the drama of the mundane gone madly wrong.”
To my mind, the lesson of the Donner party is not so much about what they did or did not consume as it is about our appetite for such dramas.
