Peter Benchley's Jaws Essay

The novel “Jaws” by Peter Benchley presents Amity Island, New York as a nice and sunny vacation town. The citizens are good people who are making an honest living, in which most of the income comes in during the summer. When a shark attacks and kills a young woman who is vacationing in Amity, the true nature of this town starts to show. The main character in the middle of the conflict is Chief Martin Brody. Amity relies on him to rid the town of the shark to help it survive. In the book and movie, Chief Martin Brody is concerned about the citizens of Amity. He wants it known that there is a shark, and he wants to close the beaches for the safety of those who are currently living in and vacationing in his town. At the start of the story, Brody …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, it is described as if it is a near mindless being. Its “senses [transmit] nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain” as it swims aimlessly through the ocean. (Benchley). The shark symbolizes the negative thoughts and actions that the people of Amity have done up to the time the shark attacked the first person. Amity Island, resembling the ocean, is a beautiful place that seems calm and peaceful on the surface, but underneath, a hungry shark lurks, waiting for something to swim by so it can take it in its jaws and devour it whole. Just as the shark cannot stop swimming, Amity must continue to make money in the summer so its residents can survive the winter. After the fish kills Hooper, Brody wants to give up on catching the fish. The post mistress’s brief conversation with Ellen Brody about the shark. She quotes the Book of Job, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?” (Benchley). She explains that “no mortal man’s going to catch that fish” (Benchley). Brody says something close to this to Quint. He feels as if the fish is “not real, not natural” (Benchley). They have to wait for “God or nature” to decide when it is done with them (Benchley). Catching the fish is impossible, “[i]t’s out of man’s hands” (Benchley). In its final moments, it goes to Brody, intending to eat him, but it has been so severely wounded, that it finally stops its advance and slowly goes