In the newspaper article the writer reports on
how the Titanic, a cruise ship,
sank on her first voyage.
The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
On April 10, 1912, the Titanic, largest ship afloat, left Southampton, England on her
maiden voyage to New York City. The White Star Line had spared no expense in
assuring her luxury. A legend even before she sailed, her passengers were a mixture of
the world’s wealthiest basking in the elegance of first class accommodations and
immigrants packed into steerage.
She was touted as the safest ship ever built, so safe that she carried only 20 lifeboats –
enough to provide accommodation for only half her 2,200 passengers and crew. This
discrepancy rested on the belief that since the ship’s construction made her
“unsinkable”, her lifeboats were necessary only to rescue survivors of other sinking
ships. Additionally, lifeboats took up valuable deck space.
Four days into her journey, at 11:40P.M. on the night of April 14, she struck an
iceberg. Her fireman compared the sound of the impact to “tearing of calico*, nothing
more.” However, the collision was fatal and the icy water soon poured through the
ship.
It became obvious that many would not find safety in a lifeboat. Each passenger was
issued a life jacket but life expectancy would be short when exposed to water four
degrees below freezing. As the forward portion of the ship sank deeper, passengers
scrambled to the stern. John Thayer witnessed the sinking from a lifeboat. “We could
see groups of almost fifteen hundred people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches,
like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs or singly, as the great after part of the
ship, two hundred and fifty feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a sixty-five or
seventy degree angle.” The great ship slowly slid beneath the water two hours and
forty minutes after collision.
The next morning, the liner Carpathia rescued 705 survivors. One thousand five
hundred and twenty-two passengers and crew were lost. Subsequent inquiries
attributed the high loss in life to an insufficient number of lifeboats and inadequate
training in their use.
*calico = type of cloth
Questions:
1. From the second paragraph, give two reasons why the Titanic only carried 20 lifeboats.
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(2 marks)
2. In paragraph one, the writer contrasts the wealthy passengers with the poor ones. Pick
out two phrases from this paragraph which show this contrast.
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3. In paragraph three we are told that when the ship struck the iceberg, the fireman on
board compared the sound to “the tearing of calico”. Explain what this phrase implies
about how serious the collision sounded to the fireman.
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(2 marks)
4. In paragraph four, an eyewitness in a lifeboat uses a simile to describe the people left
on board as the ship sinks.
a) Write down the simile*
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(1 mark)
b) Explain the effect this simile has on the reader.
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(1 mark)
