The Disaster in the Heart of the Modern Moment: The Titanic and Disastrous Modernity in the Writings of British Authors

Abstract

Abstract The sinking of the Titanic had a great impact on people around the world. It also attracted great thinkers to reflect upon the incident, go beyond it, and formulate the disaster in modern times. Thomas Hardy’s composition, one of the earliest writings on the Titanic, brought forward the idea of “Immanent Will”; its relation we will trace back to historical human will. George Bernard Shaw’s dispute with Arthur Conan Doyle shows how the Immanent Will relies on literary devices to modify reality and disaster. Joseph Conrad’s deliberations are the instance when one can see that the modern human has summoned powers beyond his control which are disastrous and void of humanity. Finally, Gilbert Keith Chesterton demonstrates the psychological process in which humans act void of compassion and create disastrous modernity. The Titanic disaster is the opportunity to gaze at the inevitable disaster inherent in modernity and formulate its internal logic.