User:Dark Kubrick/Sandbox

Jaws

Work in-progress.

Jaws bears similarities to several literary and artistic works, most notably Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The character of Quint strongly resembles Captain Ahab, the insane captain of the Pequod, who devotes his life to hunting a great white whale. Quint's monologue reveals his similar vendetta against sharks, and even his ship, The Orca, is named after the only enemy of sharks. Also, in the novel and original screenplay, Quint dies after being dragged under the ocean by a harpoon tied to his leg, similar to Ahab's own death in Melville's novel. A direct reference to these similarities may be found in the original screenplay, which introduced Quint by showing him watching the film version of Moby Dick. His laughter throughout makes people get up and leave the theater (it should be noted that Wesley Strick's screenplay for Cape Fear features a similar scene). However, Moby Dick could not be licensed from Gregory Peck, the rights' owner. The final scenes of the movie, in which the men chase the shark and try to harpoon it with flotation barrels, parallels the chase for Moby Dick in the novel.

The first half of the movie, as Brody tries and fails to convince the townspeople of the appearance of a great white shark off their beaches, resembles Henrik Ibsen's classic 1882 play, An Enemy of the People. In the play, an ordinary citizen tries to stop a small coastal town from proprieting a new group of medicinal baths. He has discovered that the baths have become toxic, but he is met with scathing anger and rejection after presenting his findings.