THE EDUCATION OF ROSE DAWSON: PART I
Prologue
Introduction
You are Rose, a
seventeen-year-old First Class passenger on Titanic–the largest moving
object in the world.
You have turned your back on your
upper class pedigree and all the privileges it represents by electing to run
off with Jack, a Third Class passenger whom you have just met on board, once
the ship docks in New York. You understand that your privileges came with
restrictions, and you have decided to break loose from both.
Your decision does not make any
sense, but that is why you trust it. You think you are ready for the unknown,
and are glad that you have a companion to make the journey there easier.
But unbeknown to you, a kiss you
shared with Jack near the bow of Titanic has distracted the attention of
the lookouts up in the crow’s nest for ten seconds–ten crucial seconds that
would alter the fates of you, Jack, and some twenty-two hundred other people on
the ship.
Would you have saved that kiss
for another time if you had known the tragic sequence of events your act would
trigger? After all, up until then, it was the fifth time you and Jack touched
lips.
Unlike the world of moving
pictures, which you wish to enter, there is no second take in real life. You
cannot have those ten seconds back, and instead of stepping off Titanic
with Jack in New York, you see him sink into the depths of the icy Atlantic once
you painfully let go of his lifeless hand after he saved your life one last
time. In between, both of you bear witness to a terrifying disaster that would
become one of the most infamous in the annals of history.
You are picked up by a lifeboat,
and later by the Carpathia. The rest of your trip back to America is
full of grief and loneliness, but one full of hope. Before he left you forever,
Jack made you promise to go on–to survive no matter what–and you resolved to
fulfill that promise as you passed the Statue of Liberty. Its presence reminds
you of the poem positioned at its base. The poem contains a line–about yearning
to breathe free–that summarizes your aspiration in this young life of yours.
Mrs. J.J. Brown called you a
pistol. Rather, you are a bullet in that pistol’s chamber. Now you have been fired from it, and there is no going back. The only way
to go is forward. You cannot and will not return to your mother and Cal in
defeat. In memory of Jack, you adopt his family name just before the Carpathia
arrives in New York. You alight feeling cold, wet, and uncertain–but
determined. It is almost ten PM on Thursday, April 18, 1912.
The life of Rose DeWitt Bukater
has ended.
The life of Rose Dawson is about
to begin.
Tonight.