An unsinkable ambition: learning with the Titanic one hundred years later
André Rodrigues P. Silva,
April 2012
The centenary of the sinking of the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic is celebrated in 2012 all
over the world, particularly on 15 April. Although it was not the largest accident of its kind
regarding the number of victims, despite was has been touted in the media, the truth is that it
has gained, in terms of popular culture and collective imagination, a place of prominence
that, in contemporary times, no other wreck has attained.
In terms of popularity, the Titanic competes with any fictional character and with vessels that
did not in fact exist and are part of the religious/mythological realm, such as Noah’s Ark, the
Boat of Charon or the Flying Dutchman. We will not err much if we say that it is necessary to
go back to the Age of Discoveries to find a vessel so popular that in fact existed, like
Columbus’ Santa Maria ship.
One can put it down to the cinema and literature, which is not difficult to accept, as the impact
they have on our lives makes it possible. But we must also ask ourselves why so many
authors and film directors have chosen to tell the story of the British ship without even
needing to change it substantially: indeed, film and literature on the Titanic did not have to
invent much, if we do not count historical inaccuracies as tales. The Titanic does not need
that. Both in terms of the literature and filmmaking, there is no need to change the substance
of what actually happened.
The film directed by Cameron, most renowned but equally challenged, “only” adds, in a way
many found vulgar and even rude, the story of a passionate and hasty love affair in no way
consistent with the love code of conduct of those days, as we can see in films dating back no
more than fifty years. The raw truth is that hundreds of couples were shattered with the
forced separation imposed by the protocol that required that children and women were saved
first.
This is an example of the perfect antithesis between human frailty and the power of
emotions, especially, as in the movie, amorous passion. Our being in this world is rather
ephemeral, whereas love endures. Human ambition is unlimited, and the material translation
of our efforts on earth will eventually be overcome.
The present text, which has no pretentions to originality, came into being out of questions on
the reasons why the unfortunate fate of the 1 523 people who died on that huge ocean liner’s
maiden voyage is still much alive well beyond their disappearance in particularly tragic
conditions. We believe that those reasons are the same that make us move on and confer
us our psychological uniqueness as species.
The sinking of the Titanic summarizes, like few events do, if we agree to leave war out of it,
the core fears of the human psyche. And whereas our ambition drives us on and allows us to
overcome obstacles and surpass ourselves, the story of the Titanic tells us of another type of
ambition, which the ancient Greeks called Hybris, which we could translate as arrogance or
insolence, not just to the gods, but in view of the actual human condition. As a dear friend
said many times, if we were to bring back a Greek tragedy writer, he would certainly write
one about the Titanic. He would lack nothing to this effect. Of course, any attempt to make a
list of all the mistakes made on the Titanic would be an anachronism. The lifeboats were
insufficient in number, a decision made by White Star Line in the belief they would never be
needed and that they took up too much space on the deck. It has also been written that some
left with less than half the seats taken. It is equally true that the ship was travelling at a speed
of 22 knots in a North Atlantic area full of icebergs. But even that was not alien to what was
done at the time. The hypothesis that the intention was to arrive in New York ahead of
schedule, which would surprise everyone and give Star Line tremendous publicity, has been
advanced. In the same fashion, it has been written that the crew was inexperienced in the
face of disaster. To increase the scale of the tragedy, some of the boats that received the
calls for help coming from the Titanic chose to ignore them, for reasons that are difficult to
ascertain. In those days, that was not unusual either, since the changes only came after the
Titanic. The Carpathia, which got the survivors on board, took about four hours to get to the
scene, when nearly 1500 people had died by drowning, hypothermia, crushing, or due to any
other accident. Even if today one can enumerate and judge these facts, even if lightly, we are
not facing history, merely an anachronistic report. Unfortunately, even specialty books are full
of them.
The truth is that the sinking of the Titanic has forever changed safety standards and sea
navigation laws. If, on the one hand, so many lives were lost, apparently needlessly, on the
other the lessons learned from the disaster enabled saving other lives in the following
decades.
With regard to the question whether the Titanic was poorly constructed due to the need to
economize in materials or workmanship, one thing is unquestionable: one of the Titanic’s two
counterparts, the Olympic, continued her remarkable career and was only dismantled twenty
years later, with the famous Mauritania, of the rival company Cunard Line. It was indeed the
latter ship that White Star wanted to overcome with the Titanic, the Olympic and the
Britannic.
We said earlier that the fate of the Titanic encapsulates all basic human fears. To a large
extent, fear restrains our ambition, imposes limits upon us, but it can also immobilize us. In a
tragedy like this one, human beings fear abandonment. This fear of abandonment is what we
feel immediately as new-borns, in a way that lasts forever. Some argue that a temporary
absence of the mother is enough to traumatize the baby. Are adults any different?
Barely hours after its hull was torn sideways by an iceberg, the Titanic started to sink and in
little over two hours she disappeared completely from the surface of the ocean. As
passengers started to become aware of their likely fate in a cold night in the North Atlantic,
panic set in and it made the work of the crew and compliance with protocols difficult. Still, it is
said that most men on board promptly complied with the norm that required women and
children to be saved first. There were gestures of great nobility and courage.
Without our references and material and human ties, and when facing the risk of losing them
permanently or temporarily, we feel abandoned. We lose ourselves and focus all our
attention on the mammoth struggle for survival.
It is said that fear of death controls much of our actions and thoughts, even when we are
unable to recognize it. The risk of death, in such conditions, is omnipresent, grows and stifles
the ability to think and act based on any kind of reflection. In the case of a wreck like this, it is
a horrible way to die, from hypothermia, because the heart cannot take the thermal shock,
crushing and drowning.
In this text I have not given an account of the sequence of tragic events in the sinking of the
Titanic, which will continue to make us think for a long time, because this is not the place to
do so and also because I do not have the knowledge required. The essential, including many
facts ranging from surprising to the macabre, can be found in history books, and for years
now, in the Internet, where the images illustrating this article have been taken from. The
intention was to share a personal reflection with you, because I believe that it is in stories like
this one that our identity is made, and where the good and the bad examples come from.
Much more could be said, like, for instance, the class differences. They have always existed,
and will always exist, one could say, not without irony. They were quite conspicuous on board
the Titanic until the same fate dictated the same death to many who had been so different at
birth.
First class passengers in fact travelled in a sort of floating palace. Those in third class found
aboard the Titanic a world that was quite less bad than the one they had left in order to
depart to the U.S. in search of better living conditions. In fact, the intention was that these two
very different worlds never met. Fate changed the fortunes of both groups of passengers,
showing just how absurd material ambitions are in the face of death.
James Cameron’s movie focused on a fictional story of passionate love. However, the
Sinking of the Titanic will always be the star in any film telling this story. Reality claimed many
hundreds of lives in a cruel and untimely way, and forever changed the lives of those who
survived. History has continued to chase the last survivors of the Titanic until the last
moment.
Some pictures from that time:
Fig. 1. (above) A paperboy holds a poster announcing the terrible news of the sinking of the
Titanic.
Fig. 2. The Titanic in 1912.
Fig. 3. Titanic, 1912; the presence of these men standing next to the propellers of the Titanic
allows us to have an idea of the size of the ship.
Fig. 4. See how in this
headline the editors
have highlighted the
disappearance of J.J.
Astor, one of the
wealthiest men of his
time, alongside the
approximate number of
deaths in the sinking.