Lit Crit Jaws Essay Research Paper JAWSIn

Lit. Crit. Jaws Essay, Research Paper

JAWS

In the novel Jaws written by Peter Benchley, Critics are correct when they claim that the novel has a lack of characterization, the book is used as an escape, Benchley is a master of suspense writing, the novel displays the facts of Great White s and critics claim that the novel also displays formuliac plotting, and is an allusion to classic fish tales such as; Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Critics need to loosen up on irritating Benchley with obvious, but not intentional comparison to fish tales and sub plotting.

Peter Benchley was born 1940 may 8 in New York. He is the son of a very literary oriented family. His father Nathaniel Goddard was also an author. Benchley was educated at Harvard University. Some of Benchley s interests are Diving,tennis, wildlife, the theater, and films. In addition to all this Benchley has a love for the ocean. Benchley has been a novelist, a reporter, an editor, staff assistance to the president, and has worked in the White House doing other various things. There is a particular interesting moment in Benchley’s life. When he was working in the White House, the president picked up some of his work to read it and said something along the lines of Bull shit . The president basically called it trash. The majority of his novels are closely related to the ocean if not in the ocean. An example of some of these are The Beast or White Shark. Both of those of which were made into screen plays. He also wrote a childrens book called Jonathan Visits the White House. One of Benchley s greatest successes is that his novel Jaws was on the New York Times best-seller list for over forty weeks. This made him the most successful first novelist in literary history. Jaws the motion picture was so successful that there was were sequels, Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, and Jaws the Revenge. As one can see Peter Benchley has a great love for the sea and marine life. He has done plenty of research to back up almost everything that goes on in his novels such as shark facts, fishing facts, weather facts and much more.

Jaws is a great novel about the town of Amity that relays on tourism. A White shark was terrorizing the towns people and their business, while the young Matt Hooper a ichthyologist has an affair with Brody’s wife. Brody,Quint the fisherman, and Hooper all set out to catch the fish. They all lost their lives except Brody while attempting to catch the fish. The fish eventually dies in the end.

Characterization is a main issue in the novel Jaws. As critic, John Spurling puts it, The characterization of the humans is fairly rudimentary , (54) Indeed this is true, it is pretty basic. That is not exactly what Peter Benchley was reaching for. He is reaching for suspense. Critic Michael Rogers claims the characters as neither likable or interesting , (260). The characters are not very likable. Benchley displays them all with bad habits and regrets, for example, Brody’s wife feels as though she threw her life away. She cries every time she tries to bring up her past. Brody’s boss is seen as a grade A asshole. Who would want anything to do with him. In addition to this there is other interesting characters that are not liked for example Hooper. Hooper of course sleep with Brody s wife Ellen. He also gave Quint a hard time while they were out looking for the shark. Hooper haggles Quint when Quint gut open a shark and the shark tried to eat itself until it died, Hooper said Jesus and Quint replies You don t approve then Hooper came back with That s right. I don t like to see things die for people s amusement. (237) Later Quint explains that it s what feeds him. After reading that who would want to associate with Hooper. Of course no one would. There is nothing really likable about any of the characters in the novel. Michael Rogers is wrong in saying the characters are not interesting. The characters are very interesting. Just because the characters are not likable does not mean they can t be interesting. A good example of this would be Hooper. Most of the people who read the book abhor him. He is not very honest and displays a type of truthfulness in which is false he lies and sleep with the police chief s wife. This makes people dislike him, but it indeed makes him very interesting. The lack of Characterization is excusable for the simple fact that Benchley did not attempt to make to novel based on character. He made the novel to keep people on the edge of their seats reading, fidgeting, twirling their hair, sweating and wondering what is going to happen next.

The novel is used as an escape. This is so because it enables the reader to take an adventure and leave behind the real world. The events which happen in the novel are interesting and people are not used to story’s of those types. He is a master of suspense as Michael Rogers puts it. (75) Rogers also classifies Jaws as a page turner It is a page turner because it keeps one on their toes. One is always pondering and contemplating what will happen next. A great example of this is would be the ending. In which they hunt the shark with harpoons. There is plenty of opportunities for the shark to eat some of the people and it does. Another fine example would be in the beginning. One has to pay close attention to the detail.

The fish dropped entirely below the surface, and, with two quick thrusts