The Titanic - Depth of the Heart of the Ocean
"Ahh, open your heart to me, Rose," pleads Caledon Hockley of the young Rose
in James Cameron's film, Titanic, just after he gives her a most expensive
diamond. The actor Billy Zane plays Hockley as a callous, jaded, been-there-done-
that sophisticate who seems to want her heart simply because he believes it is for sale
and he has a right to it. His blindness to higher motives in love totally disqualifies him
from being worthy of Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by Kate Winslet. But perhaps it is
also the opaque nature of love itself that defeats him. This scene between Hockley and
Rose is one of several ways in which Cameron develops the idea of the closed heart
and the effort to open it. The profound ocean, the massive ship, and the impenetrable
gem are elements of the setting that parallel and reinforce each other and Cameron’s
theme. Throughout the plot, they are all alike unfathomable, indomitable, yielding to the
mastery of no mere mortal. As such, they capture the image of a person's heart being
opaque, not easy to read or see through. The midnight blue color throughout suggests
that the heart of love is as profound, deep and moving as the ocean itself. The gem
drives the plot, then, and serves as the central symbol carrying the message.
The elderly Rose narrates the story, casting the film in a flashback format. She
asks a question about a gem named "Le Coeur de la Mer," the French title for "The
Heart of the Ocean." It is this diamond that the modern salvage crew seeks at
the start of the film. Their quest takes them to the wreck of the ship Titanic which sank
on April 15, 1912, and wh...
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...help for pain" (577). Cameron echoed that sentiment in his acceptance
speech when he said that love is the strongest force in the world. Anyone who engages
it, then, will triumph to the extent that his or her strength of character is as true, deep,
and profound as the ocean itself.
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Cameron, James, Dir. Titanic. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, 1997.
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"Clare Reviews Titanic." 1/11/98. 3/18/98. http://www.girlsonfilm.com/film/navigation
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
Thomas Hobbes believes that the optimal form of authority is one that has absolute power over its people, consisting of just one person who will retain the exclusive ability to oversee and decide on all of society’s issues. This Sovereign will be constituted by a social contract with the people. With that, the Sovereign will hold all of the citizens’ rights, and will be permitted to act in whichever way he or she deems necessary. The philosopher comes to this conclusion with deductive reasoning, utilizing a scientific method with straightforward arguments to prove his point.
ABSTRACT: I want to show the importance of the notion of conatus (endeavor) for Hobbes' political philosophy. According to Hobbes, all motion of bodies consists of elementary motions he called 'endeavors.' They are motions 'made in less space and time than can be given,' and they obey the law of persistence or inertia. A body strives to preserve its state and resist the causal power of other bodies. I call this the conatus-principle. Hobbes' argument for social contract and sovereign is based essentially on this model. He proves that the natural conatus makes people (i) strive to preserve their lives and therefore to get out of the destructive state of nature; (ii) commit to mutual contracts; (iii) keep the contracts unless some external cause otherwise determines; and (iv) establish a permanent sovereign power that Hobbes calls 'an artificial eternity of life.' All this is determined by the fundamental laws of nature, essentially, by the conatus-principle. I also show that the Prisoner's Dilemma interpretation of the Hobbesian state of nature does not represent all of the essential features of Hobbes' argument.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
...verse circumstances, but through their self-determination, they are able to triumph over these circumstances, and gain the power they lacked at the beginning of their journeys.
Hobbes theorizes what humanity would be like in the state of nature, “where every man is enemy to every man”. The state of nature is also a state of war because without the security that comes from the mutual exchange of human rights, every human is essentially living in fear of everyone else. There would be no laws to
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1989.
The titanic was a gigantic ship. It was the biggest, newest, and advanced ship during its time. The titanic was built in Belfast with the newest and best technology. Then after its completion it would travel to New York. During the tragedy of the Titanic the engineers had a key role on saving people. Although the tragedy of the titanic was sad it taught us many lessons on preventing such a thing again. Although the titanic has sunk to the bottom of the ocean it will never be forgotten.
Credit card debt is one of this nation’s leading internal problems. When credit was first introduced, and up until around the late 1970’s, the standards for getting a credit card were very high. The bar got lowered and lowered to where, eventually, an 18 year-old college student with almost no income and nothing to base a credit score on previously could obtain a credit card (much like myself). The national credit card debt for families residing in the United States alone is in the trillions (Maxed Out). The average American family has around $9,000 in debt, and pays around $1,3000 a year on interest payments (Maxed Out). Many people have the concern today that these interest rates and fees are skyrocketing; and many do not understand why. Most of these people have to try to avoid harassing collecting agents from different agencies, which takes an emotional and psychological toll on them. While a lot of the newly recognized “risky” people (those with a doubted ability to make sufficient payments) are actually older people who have been customers of certain companies for decades, the credit card companies are actually consciously targeting a different, much more vulnerable group of people: college students. James Scurlock produced a documentary called Maxed Out on this growing problem, in which Senator Jack Reed of (Democrat) of Rhode Island emphasizes the targeting of college students in the Consumer Credit Hearings of 2005
Sexual harassment claims filed by men doubled in last 20 years. (2010, March 04). Retrieved on August 15, 2011, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/04/sex-harassment-claims-filed-men-doubled-years/
Norvilitis, Jill M., and Phillip Santa Maria. “Credit Card Debt On College Campuses: Causes, Consequences, And Solutions.” College Student Journal 36.3 (2002): 356. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
...knowledge and courage to do what is right for others and for our own conscience. In the world today, there are so many instances where people have the opportunity to avoid responsibility for their actions, and it must be changed or as Fromm has predicted, our society will end by obedience to powers of which we are unsure and therefore “commit suicide”.
Credit card debt, can be easy to get into, but yet can take years to get out of. Credit card usage has become an increasing occurence in the 21st century for any person above the age of seventeen. Carrying cash has become uncommon for the average man or woman and unlike cash where someone is limited to only what they have in their wallet, credit cards can have upwards to thousands of dollars on them. Granted, there are great things about owning a credit card. For example, in case of an emergency and there is not enough cash to cover the expense, a credit card can be a great back up plan. However, with all the positives there are negatives, the biggest one being, a person can wind up in debt. Thus, credit debt is an individual’s fault, derived
Hobbes derives all other laws: the duty to self-preservation. At the same time, many of Hobbes’ claims
Within the context of film industry, the film Titanic by James Cameron belongs to epic romance/ disaster genre. The film, released in 1997, was a global box office hit because the director provided equal importance to history, fiction and romance. To be specific, one can see that the film’s plot is based upon the history of RMS Titanic. On the other side, the main characters including the protagonist and the heroine (Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater/Dawson) are fictional characters. Besides, the element of romance between the main characters (Jack and Rose) is the film’s main attraction. Thesis statement: The critical analysis of the film Titanic proves that the innovative mode of storytelling (flash back and other techniques), Acting, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Style and Directing (equal importance to fictional and historical characters), Societal Impact, and Genre (epic romance/disaster) are the most important factors behind the film’s success as a historical/fictional masterpiece (special references specific shots, scenes, characters, stylistic devices and/or themes).