Watching James Cameron’s movie Titanic again last night, it struck me that the character of Rose, her situation and the events that transpire in her life, contain strong metaphors for people who are recovering from trauma and its related problem, addiction. Below I will unpack the symbols that I think this film provides for us. Watch it to feel the emotional impact of these truths! The movie is very touching in universal ways. Rose lives a life of quiet desperation: Surviving trauma does not mean living Rose is a person of enormous verve, character and passion, which in recovery terms, we would call her “authentic self”, namely the unique and magnificent being she was born as. Yet we see her living in a male-dominated society where she is bullied and sidelined. In the film, Rose is dealing with the social stricture of the times, but we can see her life as a metaphor for anyone who at a young age experiences the emotional deficit of unmet needs. In response, we notice that the authentic self goes underground, adapting to circumstance. When we look at the root of addiction, we see that there was always an intolerable situation in childhood, which the person dealt with (survived) by using different coping mechanisms. So we see Rose compromising: she settles for financial security by marrying a man she doesn’t love, buckles under her mother’s emotional blackmail, and accepts gross maltreatment from them both. Her disempowerment, like the disempowerment that precedes addiction, comes about because she is separated from herself in insidious ways. Yet she is only half conscious of what is happening to her, plays the game unthinkingly, and lets slip her truth in humour, secrets and asides. At dinner she makes a joke about Freud at the expense of the men. One of them asks, “Who’s he, a passenger?” No way out: Rose wants to stop the pain Survivors of trauma may feel that they are doing quite well, or they may feel only half-alive, or dead. In addition they may have a kind of low-level chronic pain that leaves them exhausted and hopeless, or they may “burst” periodically. Rose experiences all this, plus guilt and shock. If we examine her “dead life” we see that she has accepted the responsibility of partnering and parenting her highly manipulative mother. She is surrounded by people who relate to her as a commodity and a means to their own ends. She is being sucked dry. She is frightened, physically and emotionally, and she feels trapped (stifled, or suffocated, as the movie tells us) and in her desperation runs to the back of the boat, to kill herself. She does not really want to do this; she wants to live. But she doesn’t know how, under these impossible conditions. She just wants to stop the pain. Along comes Jack: Love and Rescue, “This Is It!” Who is Jack, and what does he do? Jack truly sees her. He puts his life on the line for her (“If you jump, I’ll have to jump too – I’m involved now”). He breaks through her “false self” (the one with the propriety) and they start having fun. She discovers her ability to say no (albeit, at times, in rebellious ways). She falls in love – in short, she suddenly feels alive, she is present, it is real. Love often does this for us. As a metaphor, we might say that Jack stands for that moment of hope when you do connect, despite your past, with someone or something that seems to jolt you into life. This can be a relationship, a counsellor, a job, an addictive behaviour with a strong pay-off, or a substance. It feels as if something outside you is finally meeting your needs. Jack says, “Make it count!” – and they do, running amok on the ship. The ship sinks anyway The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. The engineer says, “It is made of steel; I assure you, it can sink”. Rose’s planned utopia, namely of stepping off the boat with Jack, dissolves. A very frightening sequence follows in which they battle to stay out of the water, and alive, as long as possible. We might say, using the recovery metaphor, that this is the moment when the writing is on the wall that change is called for, and people tend to run. The ship goes down anyway. This is a critical moment in the recovery process. Rose was dead, she was momentarily alive, and now she is going down with the Titanic. They find themselves floating on a piece of wood: Dissociation Jack realises that the floating panel he has helped Rose onto will not hold them both, and so he stays in the icy water. She says she can’t feel her body, she is dying. This is the phase when, separated from the substance (or any other kind of so-called enlivening behaviour pattern), you actually feel, perhaps for the first time, that you have been, and currently are, dead. It is most unpleasant. Once again, suicide is an option, as it is for Rose at this point, to just close her eyes and die with Jack. Jack makes her promise “never to let go” and, in terms of the battle with addiction, it really is a case of just holding on now. Rose lies in a dazed state, singing a song Jack sang to her and looking at the stars (dissociating). It is so hard to be in the freezing cold at last, the very thing dreaded and run from for so long. Rose feels the light from the life raft on her cheek, as it comes back to look for survivors. This is where support is at hand. It warms her slightly; she looks towards it. She wants to take Jack with her, but realises he is dead. Another moment follows where she wants to let go, and slip away into nothingness with him. It is the nothingness of union with the place where we came from, the place we are going back to. It is a nihilistic death instinct. Survivors in recovery will repeatedly face this temptation and will need extremely firm support. At this point in the movie some viewers may start crying in earnest: on Rose’s face, for some unknown reason, we see the blind determination to live. She lets go of Jack’s hand and allows him to sink into the depths of the sea. It is almost too late for her. She calls for the life raft to come back for her but her voice is nearly gone. Rose saves herself Rose clumsily gets back into the cold water and swims over to a dead fellow traveller. Here is that someone we all know, who didn’t survive: the person who drank or drugged themselves to death, literally or figuratively. Rose blows the whistle, stronger and stronger. She is picked up and lies wrapped in a blanket, which is a good place to be when you have just been reborn. She looks at the sky. She turns away from her old fiancé, who has also survived, thanks to his usual devious means, but who will, she tells us in a voice-over, put a bullet in his head when he loses his beloved money. There can be no false gods in the process of recovery. Living out loud Rose goes on to have a rich life: travelling, flying her own plane, riding horses, having grandchildren. She seems happy and content. She credits Jack with having saved her life in every way, but in actual fact we are the only ones who can save our own lives, never mind what kind of help or oblivion is at hand. “Dealing with” childhood abandonment means abandoning your old coping mechanisms, and meeting yourself instead. And this is where you really do fall in love at last. In conclusion, what are we to make of such terrible tales of loss, survival, despair and determination? As Janis Joplin, who battled addiction, and eventually lost her life to it, sang: Just remember, in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed, that with the sun’s love
in the Spring, becomes the rose.
Dr Jana Lazarus (a clinical psychologist) and Miranda Wannenburgh (a counsellor) run Change Matters, a creative, out-of-the box consultancy for personal change, in Cape Town. If you are ready to discover who you really are, they are the life raft that is prepared to come back for you. 021 788 5727 www.changematters.co.za Read other installments in the movie series from Changematters. The Matrix and The Bridges of Madison County |
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