Inequality of Social Classes in Titanic - Essay Example

It is this social division that made the story of those aboard the Titanic even more tragic. As the movie faded into the retelling of the major story, the love shared by Jack and Rose, the viewer is transported into an eye popping, impressive era of time that can never be replicated again. The first area that comes into view is the pier where the HMS Titanic was moored and being loaded with supplies and passengers. The pier is an explosion of social classes and bustling activity that, to most people cannot be discerned.

But to those who stood on the platform, either with their dirty satchels or alighting from their fancy, shiny, almost brand new cars, the social divide was very clear. This is the first time in the movie that we see how the social classes were treated during that point in time. While the rich bounded up the boarding platform with their delicately designed clothes, women in their fancy hats, and men looking like they had just stepped out of a perfume ad, we see other men, women, and children, setting out for the new world of New York via steerage class, passing through a demeaning and degrading health inspection.

A requirement for those of the lowest social class wanting to be part of the maiden voyage of the highly publicized unsinkable ship. No health inspection, no boarding pass. Plain and simple. But who was to say that nobody in the nobility class, the first class and second class passengers, did not board the ship carrying their own infectious viruses? As we all know, it was migration during this time that spread diseases far and wide across the world. It is hard to believe that only those in steerage were carriers of the germs.

Accommodations on the ship set the passenger classes even further apart. With those in first class loading their top of the line cars into the cargo area, their household staff along with them to decorate their “apartment” with their personal belongings in order to give the ship a semblance of home during the long voyage, a personal promenade so that they can take uninterrupted strolls with their family or special someone as the ship sailed across the ocean, such accommodations can only be said to be “fit for royalty”.

And the royal treatment they got. Meals were announced for the first class passengers the way a subject would have been welcomed to royal court. Theirs was a meal that began early with cocktails at about 5 in the afternoon in their exclusive dining area. Theirs was a numerous course dinner served only on the finest China and ended with the men retiring to a private entertainment center for their cigars and wine. The women, were given the liberty to remain at their tables for small talk. Accommodations in second class were similar to those in first class, except that their rooms were more like our modern hotel suites rather than apartments.

Steerage however, was a totally different case. Those on board steerage had to make do with 4 persons to a room bunk beds and “poor man's” food as accorded their status in life. This meant simple food of bread and meats accompanied with beer and other simple folk enjoyment that to those on the ship, were amenities that they counted as blessing they had never received before. However, it was not only in the room accommodations and dining service that the social classes were divided. The most insulting social division on the ship, as per the movie depiction which is supported by factual, hard data from the history of the Titanic itself, had to do with the public