Compare and Contrast: Jaws

In 1975, Steven Spielberg made a movie based on the novel Jaws by Peter Benchley. Both the movie and the book tell the story of a giant man-eating great white shark that attacks the beachgoers on Amity Island. This results in the hunt to find and kill the shark to protect the people. The movie does follow the main novel story line closely, but there are still many differences that can be found, especially within the first few moments of the story and movie. The first difference between the movie and novel is directly at the beginning. While the novel tells us that there is a guest house where a few couples are staying, the movie shows a difference scene. In the movie, there are people sitting on the beach drinking. While drinking, the man notices a woman, named Chrissie, who he approaches. She then takes off running down the beach. The man follows after her, both yelling at each other and undressing as they run, and they arrive at the shore. The girl dives in and yells for the man to join her while she continues swimming. While he is still undressing, he passes out on the shore. This results in him being safe from what is about to occur. Still waiting on the man, Chrissie is attacked and killed by the shark. Now, in the novel, this scene appears to be much different. The man and Chrissie both walk out of a guest house and lay on the beach. Chrissie decides she wants to go for a swim, trying to tempt the man into going with her, but he refuses and falls asleep. She slowly wades out, calling one last time for the man to join her, who ignores due to the fact that he is asleep. While Chrissie is in the water, the shark attacks her and she is killed. This is where the next difference comes in. When Chrissie is first attacked in the movie, she is dragged under water. She then reappears and is tossed around by the shark, screaming throughout the whole ordeal and grabbing onto a buoy for a moment, until she is eventually dragged under water again, this time not