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The Convergence of the Twain

 Before reading "The Convergence of the Twain," I knew it was about the Titanic but that was it. I assumed that it would be a solemn tone, painting the Titanic as a tragedy, like most others do. The connotation I automatically have with the Titanic is sad. However, the poem was not like this at all. It was sort of blaming the Titanic on human hubris and was saying that it was almost meant to be sunk. I got a tone of inevitability from the speaker, almost as if it were obvious that the "unsinkable" ship was meant to sink. This way of thinking makes me question. If we praise something for being a certain way, does that then make its end value the exact opposite of what we were praising it for? And then once it does the opposite, are we to blame society and humans for being to arrogant and prideful because they "hyped" it up? If we were to ask people who lived in the days of the Titanic, would they say that it was unsinkable or would they agree with the speaker that those people are too arrogant and prideful? Because from what I've seen it seems like everyone agreed that this ship was "unsinkable." So was there anyone saying that it was destined to sink, or is this just some statement made after because it's easy now to say that they were too arrogant. However, if the speaker were there before the ship sank, what would they say? This would be interesting to see because perception and experience change a lot. Clearly, we now know that the Titanic is "unsinkable," but would we have said that before it sank? This question can be applied today too. Genetic modification, for example. "Yeah genetic editing is awesome we can do all these great things with it and nothing can go wrong." Until something does and then we say it was obvious and inevitable. 


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