What more is there to know about the
Titanic? Don’t you feel as if you have heard everything about that tragic day, and
tear jerking movie? Well, have you ever considered why you know as much as you
do? This article attempts to explain this idea…
While starting this article I didn’t
have high hopes. I figured it would be about the ship, and maybe there would be
a couple of interesting details that I hadn’t heard of. I was however
pleasantly surprised. In an interesting turn of events I
finished the article not with new information, but rather a completely new
perspective on the story of the Titanic. This article takes you through the
media coverage of the Titanic in history. From the very first newspaper
headlines in 1912 to the plays in the 1930’s, to the movie in 1953, and of
course 1999, as well as the numerous books written about the voyage.
The common trend I learned about in
all of these forms of coverage of the Titanic is the symbolism that lies within
the story. Whether it is the divided class system on the ship, the love
stories, the chivalrous time period, or the villain rescue boat that didn’t
come to the rescue. All of these traits are used in fiction to create a great
story. In this case however, the Titanic was real. The most powerful message I
got from this article was the possible answer as to why the Titanic haunts us to
this day. The article proposes, “This is another reason we can’t get the story
out of our heads. If the Titanic has sunk on her twenty-seventh voyage, it
wouldn’t haunt us in the same way. It’s the incompleteness that never stops
tantalizing us, tempting us to fill in the blanks with more narrative” (The New
Yorker, Mendelsohn). This excerpt to me is the best theory the
author has as to why the Titanic hasn’t left our minds.
In my opinion it is important for
someone to be documenting these ideas because it is shared knowledge that the
Titanic is something that everyone has thought of before. It’s captivating in
every way, and to consider why it is captivating makes the story that much more
interesting. I’m not going to lie, the fact that the article was about the
Titanic in general had me hooked right away.
Ann- are you (and the article) saying that the reason we are haunted by the story of the Titanic is because no one knows the full story? If so, I completely agree. I remember watching the 1999 movie when I was younger, and when I learned that the love stories were fiction, it really got me wondering, what happened to all those REAL people? Obviously a number of them were rescued, but what about the ones who weren't so fortunate? And of those who were rescued, what became of their lives? I have always wondered why, if people did survive to tell the tale and saw what happened, the world does not know a more detailed account of the events of the Titanic's destruction.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Ann. It seems that there are so many layers to this story, and that might be why it touches people so much.
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