Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan

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Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan was an 1898 novella written by Morgan Robertson. The story features the ocean liner Titan, which sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. The Titan and its sinking have been noted to be very similar to the real-life passenger ship RMS Titanic, which sank fourteen years later.

Synopsis

The first half of Futility introduces the hero, John Rowland. Rowland is a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant, who is now a drunkard and has fallen to the lowest levels of society. Dismissed from the Navy, he is working as a deckhand on the Titan. The ship hits the iceberg and sinks somewhat before the halfway point of the novel. The second half follows Rowland, as he saves the young daughter of a former lover by jumping onto the iceberg with her. After a number of adventures, in which he fights a polar bear and finds a lifeboat washed up on the iceberg, he is eventually rescued by a passing ship and, over several years, works his way up to a lucrative Government job restoring his former income and position in society. In the closing lines of the story he receives a message from his former lover, pleading for him to visit her and her daughter.

Similarities to the Titanic

Although the novel was written before the Olympic-class Titanic had even been designed, there are some remarkable similarities between the fictional and real-life counterparts. Like the Titanic, the fictional ship sank in April in the North Atlantic, and there were not enough lifeboats for the passengers. There are also similarities between the size (800 ft long for Titan versus 882½ ft long for the Titanic), speed (25 knots for Titan, 23 knots for Titanic) and life-saving equipment.

Similarities between Titanic and Titan:

  • Unsinkable
    • The Titanic was the world's largest luxury liner (882 feet, displacing 53,000 long tons), and was once described as being (nearly) "unsinkable".
    • The Titan was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men (800 feet, displacing 75,000 tons), and was considered "unsinkable".
  • Lifeboats
    • The Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, less than half the number required for her passenger capacity of 3000.
    • The Titan carried "as few as the law allowed", 24 lifeboats, less than half needed for her 3000 capacity.
  • Struck an iceberg
    • Moving too fast at 23 knots, the Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912 in the North Atlantic 400 miles away from Terranova.
    • Also on an April night in North Atlantic 400 miles from Newfoundland (Terranova) , the Titan hit an iceberg while traveling at 25 knots.
  • The Unsinkable Sank
    • The unsinkable Titanic sank, and more than half of her 2208 passengers died.
    • The indestructible Titan also sank, more than half of her 2500 passengers drowning, their "voices raised in agonized screams."

Differences between Titanic and Titan

  • The Titan does not strike the iceberg a glancing blow on a clear night, as is the case with the Titanic, but drives headlong onto an ice shelf possibly formed by the recent overturning of a berg, rising up and falling on her side.
  • The Titanic hit the iceberg in perfect sailing conditions, while the Titan hit the iceberg in bad, misty and foggy conditions.
  • 705 people aboard the Titanic were saved, while only 13 of those aboard the Titan survived.
  • The Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, while the Titan had made several voyages.
  • Titanic sank while sailing from England to the USA, Titan was traveling in the opposite direction.
  • The Titan sinks a ship before hitting the ice. The Titanic came close to an accident with the New York but did not actually hit it.
  • The Titan had sails to improve her speed;Titanic did not.
  • The Titanic was the second of three nearly identical sister ships; the Titan had no sister ships.

Popular culture

Walter Lord's 1955 nonfiction account of the Titanic disaster, A Night to Remember, opens with a brief description of Robertson's novella and the similarities between the actual and fictional ships.

A copy of Futility can be seen in the apartment at the beginning of the PC game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. The obituary of a Titanic passenger is used as a bookmark.

Similarities between the Titan and the Titanic were mentioned at the end of the episode 'Night of April 14' in the TV series One Step Beyond.

A dramatisation of what led the author to write it and detailing the similarities between the events in the book and the Titanic disaster were shown in an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

The Doctor Who audio play The Wreck of the Titan (audio drama), released by Big Finish Productions in May 2010, is partly inspired by this novella, and features the characters of John and Myra.

References

External links

de:Titan (Robertson) es:Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan fr:Le Naufrage du Titan id:Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan fi:Turhuus (romaani)

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