Not Enough Life Boats: Social Class in the Titanic and the Great Gatsby

     When the unsinkable “Ship of Dreams”, Titanic, hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, during her maiden voyage, roughly 1500 people perished in the icy waters of the Atlantic.  This great maritime disaster has been immortalized in popular culture through James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.  In addition to being a touching love story, the movie delves into the reality of social class boundaries in the early twentieth century, that the social strata into which a person is born defines their life, and even death.  Among the first class, people are not permitted the freedom to marry for love or befriend inferiors because of the necessity to maintain the money and titles in the hands of the aristocrats; their lives become void of surprise and emotion.  The people who attempt to transcend the borders of class, the “new money” passengers, still face condescension from those of “old wealth”, even though they possess the same monetary status because they are seen as “infected” by their poor past.  Despite all of the passengers being “in the same boat” as the ship plunges into the depths, their socioeconomic roles decide their fates because those holding first class tickets have priority of survival over the people in the second and third class. 

     The protagonist, Rose DeWitt Bukater, is an upper class, seventeen-year-old girl whose betrothal to thirty-year-old Cal Hockley was arranged by her mother so as to maintain her wealth after her father left them greatly in debt.  Near the beginning of the film, Rose attempts to commit suicide by jumping off of the stern of the ship because she sees no other way out of her societal prison–her strictly regimented life in which she has no control or freedom.  The elder Rose, who narrates the story to treasure hunters in the modern day, describes her dilemma:

“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 mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared... or even noticed.”

Despite having the greatest privileges, Rose is trapped by her status because the thrill of all of the activities which she attends is blocked by the deliberate lack of emotion in all of the gatherings.  She calls her acquaintances “narrow” and “mindless,” showing that, to them, the world is a playground, and none of the world’s problems strike them with initiative.  She feels that the upper class is a cold place where people do not care about anyone besides themselves, money, and the family name.   One of the major decisions in her life, her husband, was made for her, demonstrating that in her world, people’s fates are determined whether they like them or not.  To take control of her own fate, Rose nearly dives into the Atlantic, but a young third class passenger, Jack Dawson, persuades her to climb back onto the ship.  Over the course of the movie, Jack teaches Rose how to go about life looking forward to new, exciting things, living from day to day.

This spontaneity intrigues her, but Rose is constantly wavering on her connection to him because her mother looks down upon Jack, persisting in advocating on behalf of Cal.  She finally decides to abandon her place in the upper class world in pursuit of love, reclaiming her freedom and breaking away from the social class pyramid.   

 

    Outside of Jack and Rose's love story across the social hierarchy,  the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown faces discrimination from the other first class ladies because she is "new money."  Instead of welcoming her into their high society, they look down upon her.  When she tries to join them for tea, they see her coming and leave the room.  Her last name, "brown", is a common surname with no particular associations to royalty or wealth, proving that to truly be accepted in the plutocratic world, you must both have money and a title.  Without both, the dream may as well be dead.  Still, Molly does not give up on her American Dream, and even tries to help Jack fit into his surroundings.  She gives him the means to dress like a gentleman, as well as provides him with pointers on how to interact with the elite.  

"Ain't nothing to it, is there, Jack? Remember, they love money so pretend like you own a gold mine and you're in the club."

While she does not quite understand that she is not entirely welcome in the aristocratic society, she at least makes the effort to leave the door open to success behind her, instead of slamming it shut like the rest of the first class passengers.  

     When the Titanic becomes a life or death situation instead of a pleasure cruise, a seat in a life boat suddenly becomes the most valuable thing in the world.  Instead of carrying adequate space in life boats for all of the passengers aboard, Titanic had only twenty boats, enough for about half of the little over two thousand customers.  When boarding the boats, women and children are loaded on first–women and children of the first class, that is.  

When Rose and her family are ushered over to one of the lifeboats, her mother is more concerned with class separation than everyone's survival.  

Ruth: "Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I hope they're not too crowded."
Rose: "Oh mother, shut up! Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough boats. Not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die."
Cal Hockley: "Not the better half."

It is clear that even in the face of a terrible disaster, Cal and Ruth are still so caught up in their own superiority complex that they deny the meaning of the life of a third class passenger.  Unfortunately, the ships crewmen, too, operate on this philosophy that the lives of the rich are more valuable, locking the third class ticket holders behind bars in the lower decks.  Some of the lifeboats are only loaded to half capacity, trying to increase the comfort and safety of those aboard.  At one point, Cal tries to bribe his way onto a boat.  Once the Titanic is fully submerged, and fifteen hundred people are treading the freezing water, Molly Brown tries to convince her life boat to turn around to rescue some of the people, but gains no support from her selfish shipmates.  

     Like on Titanic, in early twentieth century America, the setting for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, class determined fate.  When Gatsby falls in love with Daisy, he knows they are doomed because as a member of the lower class, he "had no real right to touch her hand" (Fitzgerald 149).  Similar to Jack Dawson, Gatsby feels like he does not belong in the upper class world, that every second he spends with Daisy is a moment stolen.  When Daisy is given the choice between financial security and class with Tom and Gatsby's "spectroscopic gaiety", she makes the opposite choice from Rose, allowing her fate to be controlled by her name instead of her desires.  Daisy, like Rose's mother, considers "new wealth", the American Dream, to be appalling because it "herded its inhabitants along a shortcut from nothing to nothing" (107).  Daisy views this emerging class in the same way that the first class passengers see Molly Brown–as an invasion into their exclusive club of money and titles.  In the same fashion that the third class deaths from Titanic are seen by the first class women as "collateral damage" or unimportant, the deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle, and George are forgotten by Tom and Daisy Buchanan because they "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" (179).  Daisy does not return for Gatsby's funeral despite her role in causing his death, but rather simply moves on with her life, staying in her comfortable, upper class, carefree lifestyle with her husband Tom.    Likewise, once the lifeboat carrying the first class women is safely away from the sinking ship, it does not come back to save the lives of others.  The rich proceed with their lives like a "deathless song", while the poor or formerly poor suffer and die around them (96).  Titanic and The Great Gatsby both imply that, in this time period, the social hierarchy was incredibly hard to overturn, and when it came down to life and death situations, those at the top of the pyramid would prosper while those below would perish.