The speaker alludes to the RMS Titanic, a luxury British passenger liner that, despite allegedly being unsinkable, sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. More than 1,500 passengers and crew members perished. Outrage erupted when it was discovered that there were an insufficient number of lifeboats for the number of people aboard the Titanic. Further, crew members were not adequately trained for emergencies and the lifeboats were only filled to half capacity or less. Combined with other structural flaws, the voyage seemed doomed from the start. Hardy’s marked disdain for human hubris in “The Convergence of the Twain” reflects much of the public’s reaction to both the incompetence of the crew as well as the attempt to build an invincible ship in the first place.
