Jack Dawson As An Allegory Of Christ
Why there was never any room on that door…
Ah, ‘Titanic’!
James Cameron’s 1997 visual masterpiece. A beautiful, artistic, flower-child boy-man meets a high-spirited, intellectually curious, privileged, but trapped young woman.
The romance the couple embarks upon changes them both forever. Rose overthrows the shackles of the oppressive class system that has stifled her self-actualisation and corralled her into an abusive relationship—and goes on to live the emancipated, empowered life she has always dreamt of.
Things don’t go quite so well for Jack…
Spoiler alert.
The boat sinks. He dies.
But not before saving Rose by ensuring her body is out of the water on top of a large piece of driftwood, a door that has become unsecured from its original position on board the ship.
Almost as soon as the movie was released, fans lamented Jack’s demise and wondered: “Was there enough room on the door for the both of them?”
(This still might not have saved him, by the way. The North Atlantic in April and at night is still pretty cold even out of water.)
Why do fans of the show not realise that it doesn’t matter whether there was room on the door or not?
Jack had to die.
Jack Dawson is a very obvious—if somewhat unintentional—Christ allegory.
Saying Jack could or should have got on the door too is like wondering why the Apostles didn’t raise an army and fight off the Romans to prevent the crucifixion.
That’s not the point, y’all!
Did Rose (or you) really think she was going to walk off that boat hand in hand with Jack and that her mother and Cal were just going to let that happen? The boat had to sink. Rose had to fake her own death or change her name to get away from them. It’s not improbable that they would have pursued her. The price of her freedom was that high.
Rose represents mankind. After her life was touched by Jack, she could never live the same way again. She can never go back to Cal. She can never go back to her position in the class system that has repressed her spirit. She is irrevocably changed.
The Titanic sinking is the crucifixion, and Jack is the sacrifice.
Jack slowly sinking into the Atlantic Ocean is Christ’s death. Rose’s retelling of their time together is his life; the dream where they are reunited in death is his resurrection.
(I suppose that makes the movie the gospel, I guess. Let’s not get carried away here…)
Just as Christ died for our sins, Jack died so Rose could live her best ‘Yass Queen’ life!
Was there room on the door physically? Perhaps.
Was there room on the door spiritually? I think not!
Thank you for reading! If you’d like to read more of my work (and I’m not quite sure why anyone would after this…) you can find links to my other stuff here: https://linktr.ee/sayde.scarlett
