If the ship sinking wasn’t enough drama, Titanic also saw a lot of conflict over a necklace with a blue diamond that was given to Rose, who at the end of the movie threw it in the ocean – but why did she do that? James Cameron became a big name in the film industry thanks to his 1984 movie The Terminator, after which he explored other genres with movies like True Lies before his biggest and most ambitious project at the time: Titanic, released in 1997.
Titanic is a romance-disaster movie based on the accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and follows the (fictional) romance of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), two passengers from different social classes who fall in love aboard the infamous ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The story is kickstarted when treasure hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and his team search the wreck of the Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond known as the “Heart of the Ocean”, which leads them to Rose, who then tells them her story.
Rose was the owner of the necklace, which was given to her by her then-fiancé Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). He explained that he was planning on giving it to her on their engagement gala, planned for the following week, but as he saw her feeling a little melancholic, he gave it to her on the ship. Rose was surprised and overwhelmed by the beauty of the necklace, which Cal said was a reminder of his feelings for her, and used this opportunity to tell her there was nothing he couldn’t give her and he would never deny her anything, if she didn’t deny him, and asked her to open her heart to her. Cal turned out to be manipulative and didn’t really have any sincere feelings for her, which is why she ultimately chose Jack. However, the necklace became an important object in the story, as it was used to frame Jack of theft, and was the only thing Rose was wearing when Jack drew her, which is how Lovett and company came into contact with her.
After everything that happened on board the ship, the necklace didn’t sink with it as initially believed, and it was actually still owned by Rose. A quick flashback at the end of the movie reveals that Rose found the necklace in the pocket of her coat, which was actually Cal’s, and back in the present, Rose took it out and dropped it into the ocean, over the wreck site. This symbolizes her letting go of Jack after finally telling her story not only to Lovett and crew but to her granddaughter, thus lifting a weight off her shoulders, while also making sure that nobody found it. Given the rarity of the necklace’s blue diamond, Lovett’s team surely weren’t the only ones looking for it, so throwing it into the ocean ensured that it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. By dropping it over the wreck site, it also represents it going back to Jack, along with everything the necklace stood for in their story.
While it might seem strange that Rose threw the necklace to the ocean at the end of Titanic after everything that happened because of it and with Lovett’s crew desperately looking for it, it’s an understandable decision once you see it from Rose’s point of view, as the necklace went from being a symbol of Cal’s manipulation to one of the few objects that still attached her to the Titanic and Jack. It’s worth noting, too, that in the final scene where she reunites with Jack after she dies, the necklace is nowhere to be seen, so she did manage to free herself from it and everything it represented.