A Night to Remember

The RMS Titanic; A Tragedy Based on Class. In April, 1912, the so called "unsinkable" Titanic set sail to New York. The great ship was as big as five city blocks, and weighed thousands and thousands of tons. Everyone who was everyone grabbed a room on the luxurious ship for the trip of a lifetime. On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg an sank into the icy depths of the North Atlantic. People were shocked at the news of the "unsinkable" Titanic sinking and this disbelief was due to the 19th Century's reliance on science and industry to solve problems. When people set eyes on the most luxurious and biggest ship ever, they easily presumed it unsinkable. The Titanic, along with it's size, had watertight doors and could keep afloat if four of it's bottom compartments were fully flooded. So people safely assumed that they had overcame God's power and that their great science and industry reigned supreme. This type of thought led to the quote, "God himself could not sink this ship!"(A Night to Remember p. 31) Other things that contributed to the reliance on science and industry were inventions in the Industrial Revolution, such as steam power. Steam power revolutionized transportation and brought about great changes to the dependability on ships such as Titanic, which used steam power. Also, during the Industrial Revolution, science was used to solve many problems and help out the birth of many great inventions. These inventions solved many problems, so whenever there were any problems, people turned to science for the answer. When Titanic struck the iceberg, a screeching sound was heard along the ship. People who were sleeping were woken and people playing cards were disturbed. People close to the collision could feel the vibration of the holes being punctured into the side of the ship. Those on the deck could see the huge iceberg weighing thousands of tons pass by like a dark cloud of death. Still, there was no panic. Many people just did not realize the