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Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, starting to undress for the night, thought it was like a heavy wave striking the ship. Mrs J. Stuart White was sitting on the edge of her bed, just reaching to turn out the light, when the ship seemed to roll over ‘a thousand marbles’. To Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon, waking up from the jolt, it seemed ‘as though somebody had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship’. Mrs John Jacob Astor thought it was some mishap in the kitchen.
It seemed stronger to some than to others. Mrs Albert Caldwell pictured a large dog that had a baby kitten in its mouth and was shaking it. Mrs Walter B. Stephenson recalled the first ominous jolt when she was in the San Francisco earthquake – then decided this wasn’t that bad. Mrs E. D. Appleton felt hardly any shock at all, but she noticed an unpleasant ripping sound … like someone tearing a long, long strip of calico.
The jar meant more to J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, who, in a festive mood, was going along for a ride on the Titanic’s first trip. Ismay woke up with a start in his de luxe suite on B deck – he felt sure the ship had struck something, but he didn’t know what.

Based on what you know about the workers and passengers reactions, what is the central idea of the story?

Instead of investigating the cause of the noise and movements of the ship, the passengers and workers try to connect it with something familiar and convince themselves that they are in no immediate danger. For example, Mrs. Walter B. Stephenson compared the jolts to an earthquake and convinced herself that the earthquake was worse. This leads me to believe that the central idea of the story is that people often try to downplay and underestimate dangerous situations when they have no clue what is actually going on.

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