Lindsey Pritchett - The Convergence of the Twain

For my ENGL208 class, I read the poem "the convergence of the twain" and wrote a paper on it. This poem really struck me because it retells the story of the titanic in a way that makes the iceberg sound as though it was meant to be the ship's lover rather than the ultimate cause of doom. Though the ship has sunk at the beginning of the poem, it continues to retell the tragic story. The poem introduces the theme of fate, as the "tragedy" was doomed to happen. The iceberg was fated to collide with the ship. Just as people do not realise when they are falling in love, they merely do not see it, the people watching for danger did not see the iceberg. As a result of this, the two collided. While this occurance has been perceived as one of the greatest dents to humanity's ego, it in turn teaches us a great lesson. No matter how great a ship we build, nothing is truly invincible. Fate will and can step in at any given moment. While we may perceive ourselves to be above this, ultimately, fate will grant us the right time and place for both good and bad occurances.