Close To Shore By Michael Capuzzo Chapter Summary

Improved Essays
Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo is a novel explaining the vicious shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916. New Jersey had just become popular for its upscale beachfront and the availability to swim along the beach as well. This perfect beach scene was too good to be true and New Jersey then experienced the first shark attacks to ever be documented in history. Michael Capuzzo explains the five shark attacks along the Jersey Shore and the mass hysteria then ensues after it. The first documented shark attack was in July. The shark attacked Charles Vansant, the son of a well known Philadelphia physician. He was swimming with his dog close to Beach Haven when the shark pulled him under the water. Soon after, he was rescued by lifeguards who brought him ashore. The shark had almost taken off one of his legs and no one could stop the bleeding that had followed. This great white avoided “needless confrontation and expend[ed] no more energy than necessary...the great white was waiting for Vansant to bleed to death" (Capuzzo 33). Helpless, he slowly bled to death on the beach. This was the first ever shark related death to be recorded in US history.
The next recorded attack was upshore from Beach Haven. Charles Bruder was a bell captain
…show more content…
This gives the reader a more interactive and imaginative experience as they read. At the beginning of the novel Capuzzo even describes the sharks behavior with one another. He also describes the feel and look of the shark saying “the denticles were like razor-sharp sandpaper. A man who brushed against them would be instantly bloodied” (Capuzzo 39-40). In third person Capuzzo explains the lives of the characters before their deaths. For instance before Charles Vansant dies just before he is about to get married, he himself is in good condition and lives in a wealthy

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In The Water is Wide, Pat Conroy and Mrs. Brown have very different points of view in their teaching. They both use different approaches in their way of teaching and disciplinary actions to their students. Pat Conroy is very surprised to find out how little these poor young black children actually know. The Water is Wide excerpt showed many cultural models that displayed the differences in Pat Conroy and Mrs. Brown.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The passengers aboard the RMS Titanic were about 2,223 people who sailed on the maiden voyage. They sailed from Southampton to New York City. With many great deaths that occurred on this “unsinkable ship”, many authors used this event as a background for a great story, but were the details of the event accurately portrayed? When writing Dangerous Waters, it is clear that Gregory Mone did his research and showed the event accurately. The book Dangerous Waters by Gregory Mone was a heart pounding book.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pressure from family can lead to stress or even become overwhelming. This is apparent in the story “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod. The narrator of the story is a son that is raised in a lifestyle that revolves around fishing on a boat. However, the son has repressed thoughts about gaining knowledge and studying instead of living his life on the boat. Even though his father urges him to study instead of working on the boat, the son is pressured by his mother to stay.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Sharks, like other fish, will exhibit a behavior called test biting”. Test biting is what it sounds like: an action in which a marine predator bites potential prey to see if it is consumable by their standards. Nevertheless, according to Shark Sider, sharks never finish what they started after the first bite. They simply leave; ergo, fatalities from these attacks are so rare. There are only ever deaths by the bites because of too much blood loss.…

    • 1362 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    "A Long Walk To Water" by Linda Sue Park describes the life of a female child living in poverty. Nya is 11 and Nuer, a rival tribe with the Dinka. She has to walk a very long way to get water for her family because she is a girl. Her younger sister, Akeer gets sick from the muddy water that they all have to drink, because they don't have a well. Then Nya's father, the chief, talks with a visitor and the visitor tells him there is water between two trees.…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    • Trying to find liberty, a Jew from Poland named Haym Salomon arrived in New York. After the war had started, Saloman supported the rebel cause. • In 1776, when the British captured New York,, many patriots ran, but Saloman did not and got arrested by the British. However they thought he would help them, and released him. Saloman used this to release other prisoners.…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are many similarities and differences between the article titled From Outside, In written by Barbara Mellix and the book titled Lives on the Boundary written by Mike Rose. Both works focus on the writer’s personal growth and challenges within the English language and the American school system. In both cases, the authors lacked a sense of belonging to the school system. Their lack of belonging stemmed from their differing cultures, but both authors did not posses the same culture as one another. Rose felt that his poor upbringing and lack of study skills separated himself from the other students.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In her book Living Downstream, Sandra Steingraber blends her narrative writing style with scientific research and data to provide an accessible account of the cancer epidemic in the United States and its link to the environment. It is Steingraber’s belief that it is essential for human beings to not only question, but also understand how a lifetime of incremental exposures to chemicals like DDT, PCBs, and atrazine increase an individual’s risks of developing cancer at some point in their life. Throughout the course of the book Steingraber balances her personal experience growing up in rural Tazwell County Illinois, her diagnosis with bladder cancer in her early twenties, and how her environmental exposure to certain industrial and agricultural…

    • 1549 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Than noon of the day Bethany was lying down on her surf board. As Bethany Laid on her surf board a shark approached her and bit her arm off by a Tiger Shark. She was with her Best friend Alana and Alana’s father Holt was with her. While her arm was bitten of Holt the father of Alana was the first to seek Bethany and also was the first to Approach Bethany. Once he reached Bethany he pulled her onto the Reef.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Pete Nelson's Death

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages

    In the left for dead, by Pete Nelson it’s a lot thing and examples why they died . I’m explaining, more reasons why they died. It’s only right to tell you more than one that’s why you are reading my essay. They died with horrible memories.…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The scene from the film On the Waterfront takes place inside the cargo hold of a cargo ship. A ship un-loader named Kayo Dugan has just been murdered and Father Barry has been called to say a prayer for Kayo. The scene is rich in the elements of Mise-en-scéne. From the costumes worn by the priest to the suits worn by the union leaders, we see a stark representation of the difference between good and evil. The location of the three different segregated groups is also significant in delivering the message in the scene.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Art and literature are the foundation of life. Long before Netflix and social media existed, people used books to entertain themselves. Mason Cooley said “reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are”. Even in 21st century, the age of technology, people use books as a source of entertainment and writing as a form of self-expression. Books and reading in general has many benefits like mental stimulation, gaining knowledge and much more.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Draft Terry’s heroism only comes from his instincts as a fighter. Discuss. Elia Kazan’s 1954 film, On the Waterfront explores how Terry Malloy’s heroism does not only come from his fighter instinct it also comes from the influential people in his life. Initially, the longshoremen exhibit a fundamental lack of courage to challenge the union however Terry successfully exposed this corruption displaying his heroism. Terry’s heroism also comes from influential people in his life such as Edie and Father Barry who act as moral advisors to Terry.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Shells” by Cynthia Rylant is a short realistic story about a boy Michael that is trying to get through life with Aunt Esther with his parents dead. In order to do that he must get along with Aunt Esther because he is going to be living there his whole life. In the beginning michael the fourteen-year-old boy feels lonely because both of his parents died and he is forced to live with Aunt Esther and forced to go to school at a place in Detroit. He realizes he has to make a change if he wants to live life like he did before his parents passed away. Finally Michael got a crayfish and Aunt Esther wanted to change to so they went to the pet store and got twenty more crayfish.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    but then I thought about for 2 minutes. I decided to stay and defeat my fear of swimming with the sharks. I got scared, since I touched the water because they were just like attacking the net and biting it. The sharks were so aggressive that the net couldn’t stop moving and the people that worked there were trying to get the people out from the little beach where they had the shark swimming section. All the people that live there were so panic that they didn’t know what to do at that moment.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays