Titanic (1997)

and the Girl Who Gave Herself a New Name

The great love story, read for what Rose was escaping before she met Jack: an engagement arranged for money, a fiancé who decided what she could read, and a mother who called it her duty. What it shows about the screaming inside, a marriage to pay the bills, being watched through other people, and choosing your own name.

Titanic (1997). Written and directed by James Cameron. Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Billy Zane as Cal Hockley, Frances Fisher as Rose’s mother, Ruth, Kathy Bates as Molly Brown, and Gloria Stuart as Rose in old age.

“Outwardly, I was everything a well-brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.”

Rose, remembering 1912.

A note before you read. This page discusses a film in which a seventeen-year-old girl comes close to ending her life, and in which about 1,500 people die. Nothing is described in detail. If you are thinking about suicide, you can call or text 988, any time, in the US. Every other number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is one of the most watched films ever made, and for many readers it was the love story. This page doesn’t take the love story away. It looks at what Rose was escaping before she ever met Jack: an engagement arranged for money, a fiancé who decided what she could read, and a mother who told her it was her duty.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. Ruth isn’t a villain. She’s a widow out of money, in a world where a daughter’s marriage was a family’s only plan. This page reads what that world did to Rose, and what Rose did about it.

The Story

In 1996, a treasure hunter searching the wreck of the Titanic for a famous diamond, the Heart of the Ocean, finds a drawing of a young woman wearing it. A woman of a hundred, Rose Dawson Calvert, tells him she is the woman in the drawing, and tells him her story.

In 1912, seventeen-year-old Rose boards the Titanic with her wealthy fiancé, Cal Hockley, and her mother, Ruth. Rose is unhappy in the loveless engagement, but Ruth reminds her that the marriage will solve their money problems. One night Rose goes to the ship’s stern, close to ending her life. Jack Dawson, a poor artist traveling in third class, stops her.

They become friends, and then fall in love, to Cal’s and Ruth’s disapproval. Rose asks Jack to draw her portrait, wearing the necklace. Cal’s valet follows her. When Cal finds the drawing, he has the valet plant the necklace in Jack’s pocket, and Jack is arrested for theft.

The ship hits an iceberg. As it sinks, Rose frees Jack. Cal tries to put her in a lifeboat; as it’s lowered, she jumps back aboard rather than leave Jack. In the freezing water, Jack helps Rose onto floating debris and makes her promise to survive and live a full life. He dies. Rose is rescued, hides from Cal and her mother, and arriving in New York, gives her name as Rose Dawson.

In the present, Rose drops the necklace into the sea. The photographs by her bed show the life she lived: free, and full of adventure.

Titanic made more than $2.2 billion and won eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

What It Gets Right

Its love story is what everyone remembers. But its truest part may be the first hour, where a girl in a beautiful dress is drowning before the ship ever does. It shows that wealth can be a cage. It shows a mother who loves her daughter and is selling her anyway, because she sees no other way. And it ends with an old woman whose life was hers.

What It Teaches

1. “Inside, I was screaming”

Old Rose remembers the ship that everyone called the ship of dreams: “To me, it was a slave ship taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a well-brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.”

Many women know that split: the perfect outside, the screaming inside. The film takes it seriously enough to show where it led, to the stern of a ship at night. If you’ve been that girl, the screaming was information. It meant your life was not your own, and it was right.

2. A marriage to pay the bills

Ruth reminds Rose that the marriage will solve their money problems. Cal is rich. The DeWitt Bukaters are not, anymore.

The Decoder’s Card 54, Trophy on the Shelf, is “Your image, not you, is the point.” To Cal, Rose is a beautiful possession that came with a good name. To Ruth, she’s the family’s way out. Nobody in her world asks what Rose wants, and when she says it, nobody listens.

3. “Minding what she reads”

At lunch, Rose makes a sharp joke about Freud. Molly Brown laughs and tells Cal, “She’s a pistol, Cal. Hope you can handle her.” Cal answers: “Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on.”

The Decoder’s Card 39, Information Control, is “Controlling what you know.” It’s said as a joke at a lunch table. It’s also a plan. A partner who decides what you’re allowed to read is deciding who you’re allowed to become.

4. The valet

Cal doesn’t follow Rose himself. His valet does. And when Cal wants Jack gone, he doesn’t confront him. He has the valet plant the necklace, and lets the ship’s officers do the rest.

The Decoder’s Card 47, Flying Monkeys, is “Recruiting others to do their bidding.” Someone who watches you through other people, and punishes the people you love through other people, never has to look like the one doing it.

5. Rose Dawson

The film’s great refusal isn’t the jump back onto the ship. It’s quieter. After the rescue, Rose hides from Cal and her mother, and when she arrives in New York, she gives a new name: Rose Dawson.

She chose her own name, and her own life, and lived it. The photographs by her bed at the end show a life of freedom and adventure, the life no one in 1912 had planned for her.

6. The necklace

At the end, Rose has kept the Heart of the Ocean, the diamond Cal gave her, the treasure everyone is hunting, for eighty-four years. She drops it into the sea.

It’s a quiet ending for a famous film, and a good lesson. The most valuable thing he ever gave her was something she didn’t need.

Marrying Money, Side by Side

	Pretty Woman (1990)	Titanic (1997)	Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
The rich man’s role	Her rescue	Her cage	His family’s verdict
What she was told	That money would save her	That marrying money was her duty	That she’d never be enough
What she did	Was rescued, as in a fairy tale	Gave herself a new name	Gave away the winning tile

Three films about a woman and a rich man’s world. In the last two, she walks out of it on her own terms.

If You Grew Up on This

Many readers saw this at fifteen, more than once, and cried every time. Nothing on this page asks you to love it less. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Was there a time you were everything you were supposed to be on the outside, and screaming inside?
Has a relationship been arranged, or expected, around someone else’s needs?
Has anyone decided what you were allowed to read, or think?
Has someone ever watched you, or punished someone you loved, through other people?
If you could give yourself a new name tomorrow, what life would it belong to?

Rose gave herself a new name, and lived the life it belonged to.

You’re the audience now. Your life is your own.