Titanic: An Unsinkable Mystery

“God himself cannot sink this ship”

The Titanic described as an onlooker as being a ship so monstrous and unthinkable that it towered high over the buildings and dwarfed the very mountains beside the water. These are words used to describe one of the most fascinating and enigmatic vessels ever to be created, the Titanic. The Titanic served as a shining trophy of human achievement and determination. Photographs do little to represent the colossal presence that the Titanic portrayed. The ship was deemed “unsinkable” and was the shining star that shined its light into the future of technology, only for that light to be extinguished by the icy waters of the Atlantic. When the ship sank, so did the hearts of millions. The beacon of technology and human accomplishment ended up on the bottom of the icy North Atlantic.

The ship itself was said to be unsinkable but was this outrageous and controversial claim made by the builders and the press before the sinking? Or was it popularized and exaggerated by the media post sinking. And could the tragedy of the Titanic be a warning of future consequences of our own ignorance? The Titanic was not simply a means of transportation across the sea, as in the case with most modern ships. It was a “floating symbol of status, almost a materialized article of social faith”. The watertight compartments that the constructors boasted to be fool proof turned out to be worthless. “The Titanic’s sinking marked the end of an era, with it sank the snugness and smugness of the Edwardian illusion that there were no limits to man’s ingenuity and progress. And so began the age of insecurity” as quoted by survivor Lawrence Beesely as quoted in his book The Loss of the S.S. Titanic. He continues to decribe the disater as a “cruel necessity which demanded that a select few should die to arouse millions of their own sense of insecurity, and the fact that for years such a disaster has been imminent and nothing was done to stop it”. It is a “blot on our civilization that these things are necessary from time to time, to arouse those responsible for the safety of human life from the lethargic selfishness that has governed them.” Today, the exaggeration in the media has increased ten-fold due to much larger and more accessible media outlets.

What we must take away from the disaster is no matter how advanced or fool proof our own knowledge and execution of a machine or device is, we cannot take human lives and safety for granted. As was such aboard the Titanic and lead to the death of over 1000 souls. The Titanic serves as a grim reminder of the price that is paid when selfish pride is put above all else. The 2000 passengers who boarded the Titanic were fed the false reality that were stepping onto the safest ship ever created and all the while there numerous people who knew the disturbing truths about the ships inadequacies and the knew deadly speed of the ship in the iceberg infested waters. “They knew these things but took no steps and enacted no laws to prevent their happening” states Beesely. Placing the blame of the disaster now is useless, “but if a focus on responsibility leads to a quick and efficient remedy, then it should be done relentlessly.”