Titanic: the allure and the heartbreak
The allure of the Titanic, both in movies and fact, continue to haunt us on a level not commonly found. Why does this most terrible tragedy resonate within us after more than 94 years; what causes even the most hardened souls eyes to well with tears after all this time ? The effect of viewing artifacts brought up from over 2 miles beneath the ocean makes us clutch at our chests as our lungs tighten with sympathy at the more than 2000 souls and lives that ended so terribly and sudden on that long night.
Why we react this way to such an old event is easily explained if you take the time to analyze it. Any of us could have been on that ship.
The commonality of experience is what grabs us by the throat; the fact that what happened in the great ships final hours runs the gamut of human capability. From nobility to cowardice and everything in between is thrust forward into our faces and we don’t always like what we see. It is man’s finest hour and saddest simultaneously. Most of us relate to James Cameron’s vision of Titanic in his brilliantly conceived movie of 1999, in which all of us had a small taste of what could have well befallen us if we had lived in that time. Seated in the dark, the stereo sound of walls creaking made us believe that at any moment the walls would give way and we’d be choked with freezing seawater, our lungs filled with burning as we died. It is terrifying in it’s intensity and vision.
Even hearing someone playing a pennywhistle immediately brings to mind the experience in it’s horrific entirety, and I am forced to relive the episode, tears streaming down my upturned face. The knowledge that this very minute, people calling themselves “treasure hunters” are desecrating a gravesite causes me to clench my fists in indignation. These so-called people are nothing but ghouls looting the tombs of the dead for fame and fortune. They like to justify this by saying they’re only picking up items from the debris field, not the ship itself. This is akin to picking through a plane crash from the scattered remains of bodies and defending it by saying that you’re not going through the plane.
The individual stories are the ones most harrowing as we cannot disassociate our psyches from them as readily and they impact us, making it personal and immediate. The Marconi Wireless operators that kept sending the distress signal as the ship tilted itself into a 30 degree angle and they lost power. The passengers in Steerage that were locked into the bowels of the ship and left to drown. Captain Smith’s mental deterioration after the collision, and unknown fate. The first-class passengers given priority over the other, less wealthy souls, only strike at us deeper as we realize how little we’ve changed as a society; we look to wealth as our criterion for worthiness. All of these things make us aware of how fragile we are, and how tenuous our grasp on life is.
The Titanic is actually a metaphor for everything held in our minds. It is death on a grand scale; heroism for all those that gave up a place on a boat to save someone;
cowardice in men disguising themselves as women to secure a place; arrogance in proclaiming the ship as unsinkable; prejudice and class division in the assigning of areas where one could and could not go. It is a case of humanity at it’s finest and at it’s nadir.
The lessons learned from the tragedy were many, although the fact that it took a maritime disaster of such magnitude to bring them about speaks volumes about our mentality. And even after the horrible mistakes came to light, White Star Lines successfully managed to deny the claims of the dead in court, cheating the survivors out of a measure of closure. Again, this highlights the fact that even now we put money and profit above all else, even morality.
For me the images in the film only magnify the manifold individual tragedies on that fateful night of April 12, 1912. It seems on that night that all our dreams died, plunging into oblivion along with the finest ship we could craft. If there was a lesson in all this it was surely that we should endeavor to rein in our pride in our technology. Perhaps we should instead look to the small comforts we are capable of giving our fellows. Things like compassion, humor, shelter, healthcare and other vital necessities should be seen in a clearer light after that event that is 94 years gone. However we seem not to have taken in those vital lessons, choosing instead to ignore it and “move forward.” To me this seems to be a waste of all the lives that were lost. Isn’t it better to examine the past for our mistakes so we can learn the right things ? Instead we look at the past as nostalgia, dismissing the event as just a movie. This is wrong.
The people that died gave up not just their lives, but their hopes, dreams, future, all for some higher purpose. And we choose to ignore that purpose, focusing instead on the making of lesser things and lessened goals. The chief lesson of the Titanic is one of selflessness. Of giving up things for the greater good. The band that played as the ship sank is a prime example. They could have jumped off the side; tried to find a boat taking men; or any of a hundred other strategies, but instead chose to stay and make a difference in the final hours of their lives. I commend them on their conscientious heroism and bravery. The symbolism of the band is one of giving and seeking grace while all falls to pieces around you, is often seen in various historical examples.
Although on a lesser scale, the Titanic disaster is akin to the Holocaust. It is merely a microcosm of the greater horror of the ovens. Instead of being cooked to death, you froze in the calm freezing water of the harsh North Atlantic. The criminals that went through the Jews’ belongings and gold teeth for valuable, are echoed in the same ghouls that continue to loot the debris field in the name of profit. Only the uniforms are different. The lesson seeming to be, “we honor our dead. Unless there’s money to be had, then it’s different.” If there is money to be made, then all bets are off and we do anything for profit. If someone found gold or other valuables while diving in Pearl Harbor, you can rest assured that some kinky bastard would be trying to dive on the site to bring up “Historical Artifacts.”
It makes me sick.
Labels: Titanic
