42 pages • 1 hour read
Peter BenchleyJaws
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Capitalist Nihilism
Amity is a small resort town in decline. Due to the changing nature of the economy, its inhabitants have become increasingly desperate and increasingly nihilistic in their economic outlook. Nihilism, broadly speaking, is the belief that life has no true meaning and thus nothing matters. As working-class people in a beach community, the townsfolk of Amity have come to see capitalism as system that they have no ability to influence, fueling their nihilistic belief that nothing matters. The residents of Amity demonstrate this mindset more and more overtly as the story progresses.
Everyone in Amity, including the mayor, knows that the town has no future. The town depends on rich summer tourists to fund them through the tough winter. Amity is caught in a loop from which it cannot hope to escape, a capitalist death drive which destroys any potential ambition and hollows out the optimistic core of the town. Amity exists purely to fuel the capitalist system that has already abandoned it, and its people work for no purpose beyond surviving from one day to the next.
When the shark attacks begin, the locals have no choice but to continue life as usual. While the mayor has selfish reasons for ordering the beaches open, almost every Amity resident supports his decision. Each death becomes a ritual sacrifice in the name of the small-town economy. Ironically, the town becomes busier after the shark attacks. Morbid tourists visit the beach in the hope of spotting a shark attack for themselves. The national media outlets that have ignored Amity’s collapse for years are suddenly interested, but only in the death spectacle. They send representatives from some of the world’s biggest newspapers to cover the deaths of the individuals while ignoring the plight of the community. Violence is big business, and the Amity townspeople show their nihilistic perspectives in their support of the national attention they’ve garnered. This is clearest in the deli, when the owner openly delights over the increased revenue brought in by the morbid voyeurs. Brody acts as the antithesis to this perspective. Although he initially prioritizes Amity’s economic livelihood, he eventually cannot accept the level of sacrifice needed to keep their economy flourishing. Brody’s horror at the bloody spectacle directly opposes a nihilistic outlook; his guilt over the deaths of innocents implies intrinsic value to people’s lives.
Quint embodies Amity's capitalist nihilism. Quint agrees to hunt the shark, but he demands double his normal fee simply because he can. Quint is a disaster capitalist, making the most of the desperation and death. Ultimately, however, he rejects the money as a meaningless trinket of the society he loathes. For Quint, the chase and the shark are more important than the money. His life gains a purpose beyond capitalism: a titanic battle against nature that makes him feel alive. Ironically, the shark itself also represents nihilism, in that the shark acts purely on its instinct to hunt and survive. The shark gives Quint’s life meaning, but it does not truly exist for any deeper purpose. Ultimately, Quint and the shark are bound together in death: equals, regardless of their vastly different views of life. Brody returns to a town that will eventually be in a worse place than it was before: With the shark dead, morbidly curious tourists will cease to visit, leaving Amity’s beaches tainted with a reputation for deadly risk. Whether the townspeople will pursue a new way of life to break free from the shackles of capitalism or sink deeper into nihilistic thought as their town perishes, remains unanswered.
Performative Masculinity
The idea of masculinity and what it means to be a man is an extended performance throughout Jaws. The various men in the novel are constantly aware of their need to establish and reinforce their status as men, particularly as they live in what is predominantly a patriarchal society. Every social institution in Amity is controlled by men and men elect themselves to deal with the town’s problems. This assumption of power and control is itself a performance.
Brody, for instance, is the arbiter of state violence who enforces (or chooses not to enforce) the local laws. Despite this power, he feels the need to establish his masculine credentials. In Brody’s view, men should be strong, controlling, and disciplined. In front of others, he instinctively tries to assert his identity within this framework, especially in relation to Hooper. When he first encounters Hooper, he immediate dislikes the smaller academic and privately asserts that he would emerge victorious in a fight due to his experience. Although Brody generally opposes the violence he encounters within the book, he takes comfort in the performance of strong, violent masculinity when he feels threatened. Brody is not alone in hiding his own weaknesses. Vaughan is the best performer: He puts on a face as the happy, relaxed figurehead of the town to mask his fear and vulnerability, but as soon as his confidence is challenged, his mask crumbles. Rather than face his problems, Vaughan chooses to flee the town.
The creation of these masculine identities begins at a young age. Shortly after the beaches reopen, the young boys of Amity visit the beach and challenge one another to go into the water. Their arguments are predicated on society's conception of masculinity: by goading one of the boys to enter the water, they assure him that he is proving his strength and his courage. The boy nearly dies as a result. In the face of true danger, he is almost brought to tears, a show of emotion that—according to society—renders his show of masculinity invalid. This incident also reveals the devastating danger of performative masculinity: men become so invested in their performance that they needlessly put themselves in harm's way.
Hooper and Quint also emulate this concept, but in different ways. Quint is a strong, rugged man who breaks the rules without care. Hooper positions himself as the wealthy intellectual, lecturing Quint about the true nature of the world. Brody is caught in the middle, expected to become the synthesis between the two opposing theses of masculinity. However, Brody rejects their views and his own performance. In accepting defeat, Brody allows himself to emerge victorious. He sheds his performance of masculinity and embraces his raw courage. By the end of the novel, there is nothing performative about Brody. He is reduced to a shell of his former self while the two other men are dead. Brody survives but his old, performative identity does not. Instead, a new identity is forged, one which is free of the need for performative masculinity because Brody no longer has anything that he needs to prove to the world.
Nature's Revenge
In Jaws, nature is presented as a cohesive force. After centuries of abuse at the hands of humanity, nature fights back. The shark is the main vehicle of this retribution, a creature from the depths of the sea which attacks the people who have exploited the sea and the beaches for their own economic benefit at the expense of nature.
The sense of environmental ruination is not limited to the seaside. Acid rain, a corrosive, poisonous elemental force, falls on New York City. These asides, describing environmentally destructive acts and the resulting punishments, reinforce the idea that they are ubiquitous throughout society. Nature has had enough of the humans and their lack of respect for their own planet. As a result, nature has begun to strike back, both within and outside of Amity.
The origins of the shark are completely unknown. At numerous times, Hooper and others describe how the shark’s behavior defies expectations. The shark should not be in these waters, at this time of year, nor should it be lingering in the area and attacking so many people. But nature’s revenge defies classification in an almost willful rebuke of humanity's attempt to decipher—and dominate—the unknown. The shark emerges from the murky deep as a reminder to humans that they do not understand their own world, nor do they control it. The closest a human comes to understanding this vengeful force of nature is Minnie Eldridge. She claims that the shark is punishment from God, inflicted on the sinful town of Amity as a religious force. But even Minnie’s view showcases human arrogance by projecting religion onto the forces of nature. Neither science nor religion can truly comprehend the strength and power of a single shark, let alone the other representatives of nature that lurk in the ocean.
The various reactions of Hooper, Quint, and Brody reveal their relationship to this theme of nature’s revenge. Hooper, the scientist, is so “addicted” to the shark that he insists on using a shark cage to film the creature. The shark bursts through the cage, literally dismantling the attempt to define it academically. Quint, the experienced seafarer, dismisses the shark as a mindless beast, but he is confronted with signs of the shark’s intelligence until he has no option but to change his mind. He turns the hunt into a rivalry, and ultimately dies locked in battle with it, sinking to the depths of the sea he once dominated. Brody is the one who acknowledges his weakness. He accepts that the shark is better than him and he gives himself up to fate. He does not kill the shark; it dies in front of him. Even after the shark's death, Brody does not win against nature. Whether or not he can make it back to shore at the end of the novel also heavily depends on the mercy of nature. By the end of the book, nature has triumphed, showing the humans the hollowness of their lives and the limitations of their own arrogance.
