Into the Wreck
“Jack you have a gift, you see people” — Rose
Two months ago I was watching “THE TITANIC” for the third time with a group of friends at a movie night. For three hours, we sat at the edge of our seats in a low-lit living room with snacks spread across the table, and all eyes on the screen. We had our different moments of chills, and empathy from two starstruck lovers: Jack and Rose. Jack Dawson, a poor young artist, won a third-class Titanic ticket in a poker game as the colossal vessel was setting sail to New York. While on board, he met 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater who was engaged to her fiance Cal. Though Rose was distraught at her engagement with Cal, her mother, Ruth, emphasized that Rose’s marriage to Cal would resolve the family’s financial problems and maintain their upper-class status.
Despite being overwhelmed with flamboyance and extravagance, Rose lived miserably daily. She was dying within. Emotionally drained from Cal’s every touch and the very thought of being married and spending the rest of her life with him. She should’ve been happy about the wealth, the fame, the upper-class that her marriage promised. But she needed a life of her own, not one of a scapegoat.
“I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts, and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same…
