College of the Desert.

Paola Bojorquez

English 2

Professor Lewenstein

May 9, 2019

 

The Titanic: “The Unsinkable Ship”

            On April 15, 1912 a luxury British steamship sank in the early hours after striking an iceberg. This accident led to the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers and crew. It sunk off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic after sideswiping an iceberg during its maiden voyage. However, on April 14, other ships in the area reported icebergs by radio, but their messages were ignored. 

The iceberg that struck the ship was spotted at 11:40 pm. Although a dead-on collision was avoided, the Titanic’s starboard side violently scraped the iceberg, ripping open six compartments. Minutes later the crew radioed SOS signals for help. Ten minutes later, the order for passengers to head for the lifeboats was given. Unfortunately, there were only lifeboats for half the people on the ship. At 2:20 am the Titanic finally sank. Breaking in half, it plunged downward the sea floor.                                         

 Sadly, the Titanic could have been saved when the iceberg was first reported. Instead of avoiding it, the captain might have saved the ship. Captain Smith made the decision to not slow down the ship even though there were reports of ice because he wanted to beat time and history. The Titanic disaster wasn’t the greatest maritime disaster in history, but it’s by far the most famous. The Titanic was one of the history’s greater accomplishments, but it was ultimately destroyed by a man’s pride” (Spignesi, par.12). With much anticipation of the Titanic being an iconic figure of our lifetime, it turned out to be a social disaster killing innocent lives.   

     When the Titanic struck the iceberg, it was celebrated as the unsinkable ship. It was known as a luxurious passenger ship of its time. “The Titanic was built on March 31, 1909. It was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Captain Smith was a navy officer. He served as a master of numerous White Star Line vessels” (Rank, par. 3). He was also the captain of the RMS Titanic and perished when the ship sank on its maiden voyage. The quote that is going to be introduced is based on what the captain said when the Titanic hit the iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank on April 15, 1912. Captain said, “God himself could not sink this ship” (Rank, par. 5).  Captain Smith said this because the ship was known to be the unsinkable ship. He was not able to imagine the disaster that he caused by the lives of so many people. There was no way that the boat was able to sink because it was estimated to be one of the well-known luxurious ships of all time. Everyone that was involved in constructing and designing and working on the Titanic was confident that it was the beginning and they would not see the end anytime soon. Captain Smith has so much pride in him that he decided to ignore the warning signals from other ships, so it was too late by the time he was close to an iceberg which caused the Titanic to sink in a couple of hours.  

     Fire may damage many things but sinking a whole ship can be impossible but that is not the case here with the Titanic sinking. An iceberg may have been an enormous factor of the sinking, but a fire also led the ship into its ultimately loss. “The Titanic sank upon collision with on the iceberg, but it sunk due to the fire. The fire had started three weeks before the ship set off on it's the journey to New York, but captain Smith ignored all seven warnings from his crew and other ships” (Waxman, par.2). These ignored warnings were part of the reason why the Titanic sunk. The iceberg struck the exact spot where the haul was weakened by the fire blazing in the bowels of the passenger ship. However, the movie shows how Captain Smith ignores all signals and goes through the wrong route where the iceberg is, but it does not show the part of the fire. In the film, the scene that best reflects the sinking of the ship was when Jack was in the basement handcuffed by a private detective. When Jack was handcuffed the water inside the boat was rising fast. Jack thought he was going to drown right there and then, but Rose came along with an ax to snap off jacks’ chains from his hand. “While Rose was in the process of going to the basement the ship was filling up with water to the point that Rose no longer could touch the floors from the hallways, she had to hold on the poles from the boat roof in order for her to reach Jack. Once she found Jack at the basement, Jack was handcuffed on a white pole” (Waxman, par.4). The reason why Jack was handcuffed was that he stole the big diamond necklace and the coat he was wearing because it belonged to someone else. However, the water of this course of the scene is rising. We see that the porthole water is rushing rapidly. This gives us an important message as the water is rising the Titanic is sinking. From this, it took the Titanic four total house for it to sink at the Atlantic Ocean while taking away the lives of approximately one thousand people.    

     The basic elements of the Titanic of my poster image shows a lot of emotion because Jack’s hug is expressing how much he loves Rose. This gives a huge hint that they are in love with each other because their eyes are lowered by giving an impression, they love each other.

They are both on the front cover mainly because the Titanic was a part of their love story and of course the strike of the Iceberg. However, the cover is composed of several hints that will tell the audience right away what they should be expecting from the movie. When I first saw the movie poster, I remembered looking at the sky background of clouds. This background made me think that it was going to end up bad. The blue background sky looks like peace which made me think that Jack and Rose were going to die. Also, In the movie poster it’s also shows the character of Kate Winslet, Rose Dewitt is wearing diamond earrings, which shows that character is from a very rich or well-off background. Next, the movie poster image shows that the love story of Jack and Rose will be placed on a ship. Also, the actors' names appear below them in a readable font. Their names are added most likely because the two actors are famous enough that they are both recognized by the public from their faces. In addition, the message of this love story is a love message. It is a love message because Rose was not only willing to give up everything, but she was willing to sacrifice her life while trying to save Jack. I find that crazy of her, but it is showing how much she loved him and that she would do anything for him which was pretty romantic. The visual element that grabbed my attention was the ship. The ship shows a huge part of the movie cover which gives out a symbol on what can possibly happen. It is only showing the front of the ship since that is where the front of the ship hit the iceberg. Furthermore, Pathos is being shown in the movie poster because it is showing a sense of emotion. It is convincing the audience by creating an emotional response to convince the audience to watch it. The words of the advertisement emphasize the poster that the movie is going to be about the Titanic since it’s obviously in huge bold white letters. It also shows that it is going to take place in a rich detail since the Titanic is known to be a luxury ship. Moreover, what is being shown in the movie poster is the love that Jack and Rosa have for one another, but what is being left out that should be added in the movie poster is the Iceberg. I feel that the Iceberg took a huge role in the movie since that is what caused the "unsinkable" Titanic to sink.   

     The sinking of the Titanic has become one of the most well-known disasters in history. Because of the terrible loss of life and the demise of what everyone believed was an "unsinkable" ship, people are intrigued and curious about what caused the rapid sinking of the Titanic” (Bassett, par.7). Several theories have developed since the sinking to explain the events that occurred on that fateful night. When the Titanic hit the iceberg, the hull plates split open and continued cracking as the water flooded the ship. Low water temperatures and high impact loading also caused the brittle failure of the rivets used to fasten the hull plates to the ship's main structure. “As water flooded the damaged compartments of the hull, the ship began to pitch forward, and water in the damaged compartments was able to spill over into adjacent compartments” (Bassett, par.9). Not only did the compartments not control the flooding, but they also contained the water in the bow, which increased the rate of sinking. All women and children were asked to climb aboard small boats and some less fortunate poor people were left locked downstairs. Moral of the story, Caledon hated Jack so much that he planted a very expensive piece of jewelry in Jack’s pockets to make it look like he stole it after he finished painting a picture of rose and while she was getting dressed. The security took him down in the lower levels and handcuffed him and left him there. Rose went to look for him and set him free with half the boat already sank. With a lot of struggle, they finally managed to get on the deck of the ship where Rose was forced by her fiancé to get on a small boat. Rose was staring at Jack while she was being lowered and couldn’t bare the thought of being without him, so she jumped off the small boat onto the sinking Titanic. Caledon tried to kill them because of his outrage that his fiancé was in love with another man pushing the couple in the lower levels of the sinking ship. After the ship sunk, Rose was laying on a floating door while Jack was getting frozen by the icy waters holding on to the floating door. Jack eventually died from being was too cold moments before help arrived. When Rose got to safety, she saw Caledon looking for her and she hid from him. She had lost her true love and never forgot him.

Works Cited

Hopkinson, Deborah. “Titanic 103 Years Later, Passenger Stories Continue to Haunt Us”. Biography.com. April 14,2015 Web. https://www.biography.com/news/titanic-passenger-lists-facts-classes

Tikkanen Amy. “The Unsinkable Titanic”. Britannica.com. April 8, 2019 Web. https://www.britannica.com/story/the-unsinkable-titanic

Spignesi, Stephen. “Why the Titanic Still Fascinates”. Dummies.com. April 9, 2019 Web.

https://www.dummies.com/education/history/world-history/why-the-titanic-still-fascinates/

 Rank, Scott. “The Titanic: Passengers, Crew, Sinking, and Survivors”. Historyonthenet.com. April 9, 2019 Web. https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-titanic

Harvey, Ian. “Titanic Conspiracy Theories Include the Claim that the Ship Never Sank”. Thevintagenews.com. July 16, 2019. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/07/16/titanic-conspiracy-theories-include-the-claim-that-the-ship-never-sank/

“The Titanic- RMS Titanic Ship Facts and Information”. Titanicuniverse.com. April 10, 2019.

http://www.titanicuniverse.com/titanic-the-unsinkable-ship/1443

Waxman, Olivia. “Did a Fire Sink the Titanic? Time.com. April 10, 2019.

          http://time.com/4620608/titanic-fire-iceberg-theories/