When that 3rd class lady tucked her kids in, did she actually think they were going to fall asleep peacefully?
I pretty sure that realistically, they would've been panicking and being unable to sleep. Most kids have trouble falling asleep after watching a scary movie.
So what makes her think they would successfully fall asleep when they knew they were about to die?
She knew they were about to die, but maybe the kids didn't realize it. She thought that if they were asleep, they might not suffer when the end came.
I intend to live forever.
So far, so good.
Yeah, because freezing water and with everything around them crashing wouldn't wake them up. And considering we're they were in the ship, they would be awoken by the extreme angle the ship would reach, their beds would be sliding over before the water reached them.It wasn't a realistic scene.
shareStill, I would at least try to get the kids asleep, not everyone has light sleep and wakes up by noise.
I´d rather try that, than just tell preschoolers "you know we will die in a horrible manner, trapped in a room on a sinking". If they kids didn´t realize what´s about to happen, I wouldn´t shove it in their face and horrify them by telling them.
I think it was more realistic than other scenes. A real mother would try to get them to sleep, being it with a good night story or sleeping pills (if you have any), so there is at least a slim chance for the kids not to die in pain and fear.
Of course they could wake up, but you don´t know that - Neither did that mom, neither did the mom know they ship would reach such an angle.
I think knowledge is key factor, people back then didn´t even know this could happen, nor what to do in such a situation, so they tried what back then was common sense, a thing barely used these days.
I don´t know if you are a parent now, but tell me what would you do in a situation, where you know you will definitely die and have you kids around you? If they are in kindergarten or elementary school and haven´t realized how serious the situation is.
Nobody could be that deep of a sleeper to sleep through the occurance that happen during the sinking of a ship.The noises of bulkheads giving way, the groaning and creaking as the ships structural integrity begins to fai. Realistically they would have woken up well before the water even reached them, and that's if they went to sleep at all. Unless she knocks them unconscious, they would have been awake. It seems that she didn't even try to go up on deck to see if they had a shot at making it, that would be more realistic. It rally isn't an "if they wake up" it is a given they would have woken and most likely before the water flooded that part.
Also, if I was in the situation like that, I would have made every attempt to possibly save them. Unlike some, I am a fighter who does not give up easily.
Still don´t know that, I sleep through almost everything. And if you tell the kids, you have two kids crying all the time, which would also not really help by trying to escape.
There are different personalities in the world, and I can see an introverted, easily to quit kinda personality to just return to the room and try this.
So whereas this might be unrealistic for your kinda personality, you have to view it from the characters point. She was uneducated (even University graduates from 1912 would look uneducated from a 2016 point of view), from what it looks like single mom, in a life threatening situation. If she was a servant, she always did what someone else told her, and wasn't´t used to make decision for herself.
Also: even very intelligent people don´t always make the most reasonable decisions in such situation, bc people usually aren´t used to be in this situations and you still barely practice them (even if you never practice what do to if a situation is really hopeless, also bc now we are taught/raised to think that there is always hope). In such situations people usually go into, either, fight or flight mode, in this case you would either try to escape from the ship or react in some sort of manner the women and many other did. You have people committing suicide in situations where they think there is no hope any more. You have people that try till the las minute. It also could be influenced by past experiences, how you react in such a situation. People are different, and therefore react different all situations, not just life-threatening.
I'm not sure you understand the the reality of situation. In most case sensible people's fight or flight would kick in. You say I make assumptions when that is exactly what you are doing. You speak as if what you are saying is fact. What I said is much more plausible in this situation. Since it seems that she never even went up on deck,she did not know what her chances were, which seems to suggest that she gave up prematurely.
shareYeah, sure I make assumptions. Everyone, who does not know what really happened or might have happened makes assumptions. You, me, everyone else commenting here.
I think it depends on a person´s personality and character what he/she would do in such a situation, and maybe she never went up and gave up after she saw she and the kids were trapped by the closed doors.
Maybe she tried to get up and ran into several locked doors and people that told her that they can´t go up there. Maybe she gave up easily, there are people that give up easily, just because you are not one, doesn't´t mean that everyone else is a fighter. I just tried to make you aware that there are different personalities, reacting different in each situation in life and also: In life-threatening situations, not all people make the most sensible decisions.
You can maybe judge her because she was a quitter, but not because she tried to put her kids to sleep, to at least try to give them a less painful death. For her, in this situation, knowing they will die, this was the best she could do.
I tried to look at this form the characters point of view, not mine. For me, I would also try my best to get my kids on deck and into a boat, but not everyone has the same character and personality as me. She gave up, I am not denying that, but it probably was her personality (we all only can assume that, because we have no backstory for her), and with in mind, she tried to make the best and put her kids to sleep, so they might have a less painful death. If it might have worked, we never know. The might have been underwater before the ship reached that angle and everything broke, the might not have been.
So, now, did I use enough mights and maybes for you to understand that I also only assume?
Good post Barb
----You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you.
Too bad it doesn't fit with reality.
shareToo bad it doesn't fit my fantasy.
The alternative was much worse. Here are three survivor accounts to give you an idea of the absolute terror for everyone in the water.
Eugene Daly
"My God, if I could only forget those women’s cries.....I fell into a mass of people. Everything I touched seemed to be women’s hair. Children crying, women screaming, and their hair in their face. My God, if I could only forget those hands and faces that I touched!.....These poor people that covered the water were sucked down in those funnels, each of which was twenty-five feet in diameter, like flies. I managed to get away and succeeded in reaching the same boat I had tried to set free from the deck of the Titanic.....People came up beside us and begged to get on this upturned boat. As a matter of saving ourselves, we were obliged to push them off. One man was alongside and asked if he could get upon it. We told him that if he did, we would all go down. His reply was ‘God bless you. Goodbye.’ I have been in the hospital for three days, but I don’t seem to be able to forget those men, women and children who gradually slid from our raft into the water."
Edward Brown
"They tore my clothing away from me with struggling in the water."
William Mellors
"She was going under water and it seemed as if thousands of men were dragging me under with her.....After she had gone the sight that met ones eyes was terrible. There were great masses of wreckage with hundreds of human beings fighting amongst hundreds of dead bodies for their lives. I had been swimming for about 5 mins when a woman caught hold of my coat collar and begged me to save her life......I felt that I was doomed and the least I could do was to try to keep both of us afloat. I had been holding her up for about, as far as I could tell, for about 20 minutes when I noticed my hands began to become as swollen as if I had a pair of miniature boxing gloves on and I began to lose my grip of the woman who was almost dead and she must have noticed the fact herself for she began to struggle like a madman and clutched me round the throat with the strength of a man. It was then I noticed she had no life-belt on and I found she was dragging me under the water with her."
"I had the most awful fight for life under water as I shall never forget, but eventually I broke away from her and rose at once to the surface. I was so done up with the want of breath that I thought my lungs were affected through holding my breath so long but it did not take so long as it does to tell it. I had not been swimming for long when I was caught hold of by the leg and found a seaman was holding on to me, I tried to kick him off but found my legs were becoming numbed and he held on to me like a leech. I struck at him but he only laughed and began to try to pull me under water. I managed to get hold of him by the hair of his head and push his head under the water. He became almost insensible and I got my feet clear of his hands and when he came to the surface he began to try and swim alongside of me but I managed to keep clear of him. I suddenly heard a most awful sound like a rattle and he threw up his arms and I knew he was dead. I shall never forget it for I am sure he went mad."
"I saw an object a little way off which turned out to be a collapsible boat with about 20 or thirty people clinging to it, I managed after a hard struggle to get on.....After a time I saw some of the people gradually dropping down dead one at the time and we had to push their bodies off to keep the raft afloat. Every now and again we were all thrown into the water owing to the boat capsizing and when we climbed back I noticed there were less climbed on."
Excellent, informative, and heartbreaking post.
shareMy God, how horrendous.
She accepted they were going to die is all I can say. The men up top were not trying to let anyone who wasn't a first class on the boats before they yelled at them to let them through.
shareThe Irish lady knew it wasn't going to be a pleasant end. Putting the kids to bed and keeping them as calm as possible before the final end was the best thing to do. There's really no other way to deal with it.
it makes very little sense. any real life mother would bae trying to get her kids up on deck. This film is very dodgy on historical detail.
shareit makes very little sense. any real life mother would bae trying to get her kids up on deck. This film is very dodgy on historical detail.
yes it is.
shareMixed. Survivor Frank Prentice said passengers went back to their cabins near the end "and they must have died in their cabins". A woman in Third class was seen below decks playing the piano with her daughter on her knee waiting for the end to come. Then again survivor Edith Rosenbaum said a mother had just abandoned her child and put him into a waste paper bin and just saved herself. He was found and taken out of the bin and put into Edith's lifeboat. Other women passed their children to the crew with the hopes they would save their children for them. e.g.
John Collins - Assistant Cook
"I said to myself, "There is no chance there," and I ran back to the deck, ran to the port side on the saloon deck with another steward and a woman and two children, and the steward had one of the children in his arms and the woman was crying. I took the child off of the woman and made for one of the boats. Then the word came around from the starboard side there was a collapsible boat getting launched on the starboard side and that all women and children were to make for it. So me and another steward and the two children and the woman came around on that side, the starboard side, and when we got around there we saw then that it was forward. We saw the collapsible boat taken off of the saloon deck, and then the sailors and the firemen that were forward seen the ship's bow in the water and seen that she was intending to sink her bow, and they shouted out for all they were worth we were to go aft, and word came there was a boat getting launched, so we were told to go aft, and we were just turning around and making for the stern end when the wave washed us off the deck, washed us clear of it, and the child was washed out of my arms; and the wreckage and the people that was around me, they kept me down for at least two or three minutes under the water. Well, it seemed that to me. I could not exactly state how long, but it seemed that to me. When I came to the surface I saw this boat that had been taken off. I saw a man on it. They had been working on it taking it off of the saloon deck, and when the waves washed it off the deck they clung to that; then I made for it when I came to the surface and saw it, and I swam over to it."
i dont know if it was mentioned in the replies but i thought for awhile that she was poising them and giving them a peaceful death.
seriously though that really sucks thinking about either way.
i dont know if it was mentioned in the replies but i thought for awhile that she was poising them and giving them a peaceful death.