Introduction
Titanic is a 1997 movie directed by James Cameron, which achieved substantial commercial success and positive critic reviews. Some people view Titanic as a story about the sinking of the eponymous ship in 1912, which was the largest vessel afloat at the time. They argue that the major plotline about love between Rose and Jack was created to make the story attractive to the audience. The movie is indeed based on a real-life tragedy and depicts a range of historical characters, such as Captain Edward John Smith and Thomas Andrews. However, it does more than merely show a love story against a backdrop of the catastrophe. Titanic demonstrates a desperate fight for survival: Rose’s struggle to overcome her mother’s and fiancé’s domination, the fight for survival between the rich and the poor, and women’s attempts to succeed in a male-dominated society.
Psychoanalytic Perspective
From a psychoanalytic view, Titanic is the depiction of Rose’s struggle with the consequences of her dysfunctional relationships with her parents and, subsequently, her fiancé. Since childhood, she was obliged to follow the social norms accepted in higher society. The audience learns it from the episode when Rose sees a mother teaching her four-year-old daughter to keep the correct posture and hold a teacup. This was exactly what Rose experienced as a child, and she grew tired of all the conventions characteristic of the high social class. However, she could not object to her mother’s commands, even being a grown-up 17-year-old girl. After her father’s death, Rose was obliged to marry Cal in order to cope with her family’s debts and preserve status. He was a wealthy man who treated her like his possession. These relationships negatively affected her character and laid the foundation for her struggle depicted in the movie.
It seems that Rose was so deeply affected by the necessity to obey that she developed an intense fear of death. However, she was afraid to die not literally but spiritually; it means that she was sure that if she married Cal, her individuality would cease to exist. Jack described Rose’s feelings as being “stuck on a train you can’t get off ‘cause you’re marrying this fella” (Cameron). According to Tyson, when the fear of death reaches the extreme, living one’s life becomes so painful that one’s only choice is death (23). This happened to Rose when she desperately ran toward the ship railing and started to climb over it, aiming to commit suicide.
Luckily for her, Jack witnessed her suicide attempt and gave her a helping hand. It seems that Jack could not stay aloof because of his worldview shaped by his past experiences. When he was fifteen, his parents died in a fire, and it greatly affected his attitude toward life. Jack said to Rose, “Something like that teaches you to take life as it comes at you. To make each day count” (Cameron). In a sense, Jack also had a fear of death. According to Tyson, this psychological issue translates into a more general fear of loss (23). Having experienced the death of his parents, Jack was afraid to lose any valuable things that came to him in his life. In a conversation with Rose, he said that his father always wanted to see the ocean but never managed to do so (Cameron). Jack feared that something similar could happen to him, which was why he decided not to miss any opportunities that arose before him. For this reason, he was happy to win the ticket to Titanic, and he seized the chance to rescue Rose when she was about to jump.
Rose’s behavior demonstrates her unstable sense of self, which becomes especially evident after her acquaintance with Jack. Tyson defines this core issue as “the inability to sustain a feeling of personal identity” due to which individuals change their conduct depending on who is around them (16). Among people of high social status, Rose behaved as required by the rules accepted in that society, even though she did not like it. However, when she joined the third class, she changed her conduct as if she were one of them. In a conversation with Jack, she shared that she did not possess a firm sense of self: “There’s something in me, Jack. I feel it. I don’t know what it is, whether I should be an artist, or, I don’t know… a dancer” (Cameron). Since she had been told what to do throughout her whole life, she was unaware of her true aspirations and only had a sense that her current position was wrong.
In the face of death, Rose managed to overcome the constraints imposed on her by her parents and fiancé. Instead of trying to save herself, she rushed to rescue Jack. Running into the lift operator who attempted to stop her, she exclaimed: “I’m through with being polite, goddamnit! I may never be polite the rest of my life!” (Cameron). The fear of losing Jack urged her to forget the proprieties taught to her since childhood. Jack was Rose’s rescue from her imperious mother and fiancé; losing him would mean the loss of herself and the return to the situation that forced her to attempt suicide. Although Jack eventually died, she managed to escape the fate of Cal’s wife by threatening to spoil Cal’s reputation. Thus, Titanic depicts Rose’s liberation from her dysfunctional relationships with her mother and Cal, which was driven by her fear of loss of her freedom and identity.
Marxist Perspective
From the Marxist perspective, Titanic is a movie that invites the audience to condemn capitalism by showing an unequal struggle for survival between the rich and the poor. In the film, the ship represents a capitalist society: the first class was separated from the third class, and there was a startling difference between them. People from the first class resided in opulent rooms, had servants to assist them, and were served with various delicacies. In contrast, the third class was located at a lower deck in rooms with plain interiors. Passengers from the lower deck were not allowed to enter the premises intended for the upper class. This design of the ship represents the societal divide between the bourgeoisie – those who control resources – and the proletariat, comprised mainly of manual laborers (Tyson 52). As Tyson notes, Marxists focus on the distribution of economic power because this is the field where the fiercest battles take place – the ones “between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’” (52). Titanic depicts one such fight that demonstrates the injustice of the capitalist system.
Cameron sets the scene for the struggle for survival by vividly demonstrating the relationships between the rich and the poor. The upper class treated the lower class contemptuously and as if they were less worthy than themselves. For example, when Jack was invited to have dinner with Rose’s family in acknowledgment of his rescue of Rose, one first-class passenger noted: “What is Hockley hoping to prove, bringing this bohemian up here?” (Cameron). Cal Hockley is the main character representing the ruling class and can also be regarded as the adherent to the ideology of rugged individualism. His phrase “A real man makes his own luck” may be considered his personal motto as he was highly concerned with doing anything to increase his wealth (Cameron). Marxists oppose rugged individualism because it encourages people to value their own interests higher than those of society, especially of unprivileged people (Tyson 57). Indeed, in the movie, the majority of the first class did not care about the passengers of the lower class.
When the ship hit the iceberg, and it became clear that the vessel would sink, the unequal fight for survival began. The upper-class passengers possessed money and, consequently, power, which was why it was the priority to save them first. Realizing these circumstances, Rose shouted to her mother: “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” (Cameron). Her fiancé’s reply reflected the whole upper class’s attitude toward the poor: “Not the better half” (Cameron). The difference between the value that rich people assigned to their lives and those of the poor became even more evident when the third-class passengers were locked behind the gates. The poor were hindered from the rescue, while the rich cared more about saving their belongings rather than helping those on the lower deck.
Titanic shows not only rich people’s indifference toward the poor but also overt cruelty. Lifeboats were departing half-full, but no one was willing to return and help the remaining passengers. On lifeboat 6, Molly, a first-class lady who was not respected by her peers, asked the crew, “What’s the matter with you? It’s your men back there! We got plenty of room for more” (Cameron). However, no one listened to her. In another lifeboat, Cal hit the people in the water with the oar when they tried to cling to the sides of the boat. As a result, many third-class passengers froze to death because the rich did not consider their lives worth saving. Thus, from the Marxist point of view, Titanic shows a story of a fight for survival between the wealthy and the poor. In this battle, the lower class is defeated because the power to allocate the available resources is concentrated in the hands of the rich, but they use it only for their own interests.
Feminist Perspective
From the feminist perspective, Titanic is also deeper than a love story against the background of the sinking ship. The movie shows the classic patriarchal society and how women struggle to survive in it. Patriarchy is defined as “any culture that privileges men by promoting traditional gender roles” (Tyson 81). In Titanic, this culture is evident among the upper class, in which men are considered superior to women.
Rose and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, represent two different approaches that women can take in a male-dominated society. Ruth is a traditional “patriarchal woman,” which means that she internalized the values and norms of patriarchy (Tyson 81). She sincerely believed that it was men’s work to provide for the family, which was why she urged Rose to marry Cal: “It is a fine match with Hockley, and it will ensure our survival” (Cameron). When Rose said to her that it was unfair for her mother to force her to marry the man she did not love, Ruth answered: “Of course it’s unfair! We’re women. Our choices are never easy” (Cameron). Thus, Ruth thought that it was unjust that women had to rely on men if they wanted to lead a decent life. However, she accepted these patriarchal values and saw no alternatives to her lifestyle.
In contrast, Rose opposed patriarchal ideology because she did not want to feel inferior to men, particularly her fiancé, Cal. In Titanic, Cal is depicted as a traditional patriarchal man who believes in male superiority and women’s obedience. For example, when Rose said that she was his fiancée, not “some foreman … you can command,” Cal replied, “Yes! You are! And my wife… in practice, if not yet by law. So you will honor me, as a wife is required to honor her husband!” (Cameron). However, this was not the fate that Rose wanted for herself. Instead, she eventually refused to act like a lady and even asked Jack to teach her to spit “like a man” (Cameron). Due to her courage to act against traditional gender roles and behavior patterns, she was able to avoid marrying the domineering man and managed to live the life of her choice.
Conclusion
Titanic goes far beyond depicting a love story against a background of the sinking of the ship. From a psychoanalytic perspective, it is a story about how Rose’s fear of loss of her freedom and identity drove her to have an affair with Jack and part with her fiancé. Marxist critics would view this movie as the depiction of the struggle for survival between the rich and the poor, in which the former win because they control the resources. From the feminist perspective, Titanic is a film about a patriarchal society in which Ruth and Cal internalized patriarchal values, and Rose opposed them.
Works Cited
Cameron, James, director. Titanic. Paramount Pictures, 1997.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.