Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater's love affair is the central focus of James Cameron's film Titanic.
Rose DeWitt Bukater[]
Rose DeWitt Bukater was a beautiful and worlds wealthy first-class passenger aboard the Titanic. She boarded the ship with her snooty mother and her cruel fiancé Caledon Hockley.
Jack Dawson[]
Jack Dawson was a third-class passenger and a penniless though talented artist. He won his tickets in a game of poker, and he boarded the ship with his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi. He was also very optimistic and very excited to board the Titanic.
History[]
On the Titanic[]
Less than 2 days after Rose boarded the Titanic, she attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself off the ship to avoid her arranged marriage to Caledon Hockley.
She was dissuaded by Third-Class passenger Jack Dawson, who warned her how cold the water was and that if she jumped he would have to jump in after her. When Jack tried to help her back over the railing, she slipped and fell, hanging dangerously over the edge with Jack gripping her hand. Later, Jack managed to pull her back over the railing.
Hearing her screams, some nearby crew members ran over and found them sprawled out on the floor. Due to Rose's screams and the fact Jack had removed his jacket and shoes, it appeared to them that he had attempted to rape her. Quartermaster Rowe sent for the master-at-arms, who also brought Rose's fiancé Cal, who attempted to have Jack arrested. However, Rose informed him that she had slipped and Jack had put his own life on the line to save her, albeit lying that she had been looking over the railing to see the propellers. Jack did not contradict her, indicating they started sharing a secret.
Cal attempted to bring Rose inside, forgetting all about Jack, until Archibald Gracie suggested that Jack be rewarded somehow. Cal instructed his valet Spicer Lovejoy to give Jack $20, but Rose protested that her life was worth more than that. Cal then invited Jack to eat with them in the First-Class dining area the following evening, ostensibly as an expression of gratitude, though really believing it would be an opportunity to show him up.
Falling in love[]
The following day, Rose sought out Jack to thank him. However, she began to feel uncomfortable when Jack started to question her motive for wanting to jump and if she really did love Cal. Offended by his audacity, she made to leave. Rose then rethought this, and realizing they were on the First-Class deck, she then ordered Jack to leave. Jack laughed at her hypocrisy, and she scornfully took his notebook. However, she was impressed upon seeing the drawings in it. Hailing his work as exquisite, Rose told him he had a talent. They spent the entire day talking about their lives. That afternoon, Jack taught Rose how to spit off of the side of the ship. When her mother caught them doing this, she was appalled, looking at Jack, as the old Rose put it, "looking at him like an insect", and took Rose back to her room to prepare for dinner. Another First-Class passenger, Molly Brown, meanwhile, asked, "do you have the slightest comprehension of what you were doing?" and assisted Jack in dressing for dinner with the first-class passengers by lending him a tuxedo intended for her son.
At dinner, Rose explained to Jack who all of the first-class passengers were and showed him around before dining. He charmed the entire table with his humor and insightful comment about how life is a gift and he didn't intend on wasting it. As he was leaving, he slipped a note into Rose's hand reading "Make it count. Meet me at the clock", meaning the Honour and Glory clock at the top of the Grand Staircase. Hesitantly, she went to the clock where Jack asked her if she wanted to go to a "real party". He took her down below decks where the third class were partying. But while she and Jack were dancing, Cal's manservant Spicer Lovejoy spied on them. As Jack and Rose were walking back from the 3rd class party Jack taught her the song "Come Josephine in my Flying Machine". When they saw a shooting star Jack asked Rose what she would wish for, and she responded "something I can't have" and ran into the first-class entrance.Note: This appears in a deleted scene.
The following day, Ruth and Cal forbade Rose from ever seeing Jack again, albeit repeatedly telling him that they appreciated his courage and kindness.
Sinking of the Titanic and aftermath[]
The next morning, Rose and Cal were having breakfast on their private veranda. Cal had been informed by Lovejoy about Rose and Jack’s evening after dinner. Rose said that she was not a worker of his, but his fiancé. This resulted in Cal flipping the table and leaving in a huff. A traumatised Rose tried to help her maid clean up the mess but the maid insisted that Rose collect herself first.
Not long after, Rose was getting ready to attend the Titanic’s service when her mother came in. She tightened Rose’s corset as she informed her of their debt and situation and how she must marry Cal. Rose then became aggrieved.
Then Jack went up to the first class church service to speak to Rose. He was denied entry as Lovejoy tried to pay him off. He refused, saying he just wanted to speak with Rose. He was taken back to his quarters.
On the same day the ship hit the iceberg, Jack disguised himself as a first-class passenger by donning a stolen jacket. He intercepted Rose as she was being given a tour of the ship by Thomas Andrews. He took her to the gym, which was empty as it was a Sunday afternoon, affording them some privacy.
He told her that she clearly had an adventurous spirit and was yearning to breathe free, but was trapped by her mother and Cal. Marrying Cal would doom her to a life of misery. Although poor, he offered to save her from this fate. Rose, in denial, claimed she loved Cal, and asked Jack to leave her alone.
Later, Rose observed a first-class mother and her child correcting her posture, and went to find Jack to tell him that she changed her mind.
They shared their first kiss on the bow at sunset, which the old Rose portrayed as "the last time Titanic ever saw sunset." They went back to Rose's room, where Rose asked Jack to draw her wearing nothing but the Heart of the Ocean necklace that Cal had given her as an engagement present. Afterwards, they locked the drawing in Cal's safe. They realized that Lovejoy was coming to check on Rose.
Jack and Rose ran down the hallway in an effort to escape from him. The two ended up running through the boiler room into the hold. They wandered into the cargo hold and into the back seat of a car, where they passionately made love for the first, and sadly, the only time.
When they returned to the boat deck, Rose told Jack when the ship docked, she'd run off with him and they passionately kissed. However, they broke apart upon feeling the ship shudder and saw some ice from an iceberg crumble onto the deck. They then found out that the ship had hit an iceberg, and the situation was serious. Rose and Jack went to tell Cal and Rose's mother. However, when they got there, Cal and Spicer Lovejoy had staged a robbery and managed to sneak the Heart of the Ocean necklace into Jack's pocket after seeing the drawing and framed him for stealing it. Jack was arrested and sent down with the master-at-arms. He was chained to a pipe and left for dead. Rose went back and freed him by using an axe to chop the handcuffs apart. Afterwards, Cal and Jack convinced Rose to get into one of the lifeboats for the ship to escape, because the ship was sinking. Rose got into it, but jumped out as it was leaving and got back on the ship because she refused to leave Jack behind. Cal, enraged by this, chased down the two with a gun into the ship in an unsuccessful attempt to kill them.
The two ran through the rapidly submerging ship, trying to escape the water, which was rising up to their necks. When they reached the upper deck again, the ship split in two. They climbed to the back of the ship and it rose vertically in the air, so they climbed over the railing where Rose had attempted suicide a couple nights earlier. Both fled the shipwreck alive, and ended up in the freezing water.
Rose climbed onto a door from the shipwreck, but it was not buoyant enough to support Jack as well, so he had no choice but to stay in the freezing water. He made Rose promise that no matter what happened to him, she would do everything she wanted to do with her life and die an old woman warm in her bed rather than die here with her whole life ahead of her. Jack died of hypothermia that night while Rose was rescued. She took Jack's last name and did fulfil every of her promise to Jack. Rose married and had children and managed to pursue an acting career, just as she and Jack had talked about on the ill-fated ship. The two were reunited in the denouement, perhaps in heaven, when she walked into the grand foyer, where all the victims of the Titanic awaiting her. The young rose, clad in a white dress, walked up the staircase to meet Jack, who was standing near the clock. At long last, the two kiss passionately, finally reunited after an 84-year separation.
Legacy[]
Jack and Rose's romance was pitched as "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic", referring to another famous story of star-crossed lovers.
Jack and Rose's relationship in Titanic is often considered the movie romance of a generation. The chemistry of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater is often compared to the romantic chemistry from the 2 earlier blockbuster epics; the first being Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh in the 1939 Victor Flemming film Gone with the Wind as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara the second being Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the 1965 David Lean film Doctor Zhivago as Yuri Zhivago and Lara Antipova. Because of this Titanic is sometimes known as the Millennial Gone with the Wind or the Millennial Doctor Zhivago due to the film being the third major blockbuster epic romance (following Gone with the Wind and Doctor Zhivago).