CAPTAIN EDWARD J SMITH AND HIS FATE
The lore of the sea has it that the captain should go down with is ship.
Survivors of the Titanic give different versions of what they think happened to the Captain. Certainly, one version of the Captain’s fate is that he was last seen on the bridge of the ship as it started its plunge beneath the waves. The second version has it that he did not go down with the ship but saved a small child, swam to one of the lifeboats, handed the child to the people on board the life boat and then swam off, never to be seen again. Another version says that the Captain shot himself. There is no similarity between any aspect of these versions.
Why do you think that these versions are so different?
Why do you think that in the film ‘Titanic’ the captain is shown going down with his ship?
What is the overall impression given of Captain Edward J Smith in the film?
There is a further question that also needs to be asked.
Why, at the time, was it so important to know what had happened to the captain and how he met his fate? We shall return to this later.4
CONCLUSION
Looking at the oral history one could start to draw conclusions about the passengers. These testimonies show how the events came to be related in the way that they did and the sort of society that existed at that time. There is the point of whether or not the captain went down with his ship, the piece of music played by the band as the Titanic was sinking and the fact that most testimonies came from first and second class passengers and crew.