Post 16: Mythological elements of "The Titanic"

The Titanic by David R. Slavitt has many mythological elements throughout. The opening sentence of his poem is "Who does not love the titanic?", asking a question in a way that makes it seem there is only one answer, but yet there are many reasons as to why someone would not love the titanic. Piggy backing with his next line of "If they sold passage tomorrow for that same crossing, who would not buy?". Again, making the titanic some luxury that we all know how that ended. When you continue to read the rest of the poem that sentence begins to make more sense, he uses a tone that makes it sound like dying on the Titanic is the way to do it, "To go down... We all go down, mostly alone. But with crowds of people, friends, servants, well fed, with music, with lights! Ah!" surrounded by people and not alone, to be remembered by future generations, brings comfort than dying alone. He also mentions that the world should mourn, "as it ought to do, and almost never does." he could be stating this in a way that shows that humans as a whole are exposed to tragedy often but are quick to dismiss it. My absolute favorite part of this poem, is the last line "We all go: only a few, first-class" shows Slavitt's views on wealth and social class, because the irony of his tone (the wealthier people were first to attempt to save in the Titanic, as the poorer class had to fend for themselves). Although a lot of them died anyway, their wealth could not save them from death.