Years ago, I listened to a call-in talk show that discussed the day’s topics and whatever else was on people’s minds. It was a serious show for the most part, but occasionally, the well-respected host threw it wide open with some subjects on the lighter side. Some of those lighter shows included who you would like to be stranded on a desert island with (some answers surprised me. You’d really rather be stranded with Eric Clapton so he could teach you a few guitar licks than with Cheryl Ladd at her most gorgeous?), why The Trouble With Tracy was the worst sitcom ever, and what genres of music you hate and why. This is one of those blog entries that straddles the serious and the fun side while examining the human condition. So, let’s get to it.
The famous ship, a marvel of Edwardian engineering and allegedly unsinkable, sat poised in Southampton, ready to embark across the Atlantic. Yet, amidst the bustling activity and hopeful anticipation, a different kind of tale whispers through the annals of Titanic lore – the story of a mother cat and her litter, said to have disembarked days before the fateful departure, seemingly sensing the impending disaster. While widely circulated, this charming anecdote is more likely a poignant urban legend than a historical fact. However, its enduring popularity speaks volumes about our fascination with premonition, connection with the animal world, and inherent desire to find meaning in the face of tragedy.
The kernel of truth within this legend lies in the documented presence of a ship’s cat named Jenny aboard the Titanic. Stewardess Violet Jessop, a survivor of the disaster, recalled Jenny as a resident of the vessel who had recently given birth to kittens while the ship was in Belfast. Ships often harbored cats to control rodent populations, making Jenny a functional and furry crew member. The legend embellishes this reality, painting a scene of Jenny, with an almost supernatural intuition, carrying her kittens off the ship one by one in Southampton. Some versions even include a laborer, Jim Mulholland, who witnesses this feline exodus, taking it as an ill omen and choosing to leave the ship himself. This decision would save his life from the upcoming tragedy. Did this happen as reported? It’s possible, but has never been proven.
Why does this story continue to capture imaginations despite its lack of concrete evidence? Firstly, it taps into our deep-seated belief in premonition, the idea that specific individuals, or even animals, can sense future events. In the aftermath of a catastrophe like the Titanic, the human mind naturally seeks patterns and explanations, sometimes attributing uncanny foresight to seemingly prescient acts. The image of a mother protecting her young by fleeing upcoming danger resonates deeply with our primal instincts and understanding of maternal bonds. It offers a comforting, albeit perhaps fantastical, sense that the disaster wasn’t entirely random, that there were subtle warnings that some, if only animals, could grasp that something wasn’t right.
The story also highlights our anthropomorphic tendencies – our inclination to attribute human-like emotions and reasoning to animals. We imbue Jenny with a sense of knowing, a powerful maternal instinct that transcends the limitations of animal intelligence as we typically understand it. This humanization allows us to connect with the story on an emotional level, transforming a simple act of a cat moving her kittens into a message of impending doom. It’s a way to find a relatable element within the tragedy’s almost incomprehensible scale. Can animals sense upcoming events? Yes, they can, and I sometimes witnessed this when our dog got antsy even after a good walk or run hours before a thunderstorm, but this didn’t happen every time the dark clouds rolled in and the heavens rumbled. And our cat slept through the entire event nearly every time, including well before the storm hit.
The Jenny story, even in its possibly fictional form, adds a layer of poignant foreshadowing to the Titanic’s story. It introduces a subtle whisper of impending doom before the tragedy unfolds. This enhances the dramatic irony of the story, making the subsequent disaster feel almost inevitable, as if Jenny, and perhaps the animals that did embark from Southampton with their owners, knew what fate awaited the supposedly unsinkable ship.
While the tale of the Titanic cat and her brood presciently fleeing the doomed ship in Southampton is likely (though not certainly) an urban legend, its enduring appeal lies in its potent combination of our belief in premonition, our emotional connection with animals, and our human need to find meaning and perhaps even a sense of warning within the face of overwhelming tragedy. It serves as a reminder of our ongoing fascination with the unknown and our tendency to weave narratives that help us understand the complexities of the world, even when those narratives blur the lines between fact and fiction.
John Berkovich Talks 