Probably Unanswerable Questions
Why is no one seasick? Why make Rose an American? If the ship reaches New York, what does Rose do and how long until she realizes her mistake?
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:34Read transcript
- Asks, with open waters in mind, why no one is seasick. — Amanda Dobbins
- Cruise liners supposedly rock less, which another host disputes from experience; the film Brooklyn is cited for its portrayal of a transatlantic crossing where the heroine is sick all night.
- Why make Rose an American when Kate Winslet is British and there were plenty of British heiresses? A host reasons that it was usually titled British men marrying American heiresses for money, as in Downton Abbey, so maybe that is why, though a British Rose could have been plausible.
- If the ship makes it to New York, what does Rose do and how long until she realizes she made a mistake? One answer is half the time she has known Jack, a day and a half.
- Another answer: without the sinking she never sees that Cal set Jack up, the moment behind her spit, and she would remember her mother cinching her corset, decide she does not want her mother to be poor, so the practical outcome is not going with Jack.
- A later reading cuts the other way: even without the sinking, she would not want her mother to almost kill her again.
- The corset scene is called an unimaginative American-epic trope for conveying class, as in Meet Me in St. Louis and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, very James Cameron.