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

Anybody would agree that this particular scene is tense. Would one close the book in the middle of that paragraph? Of course not, that paragraph of the novel Jaws is only one of many suspense filled scenes in the novel. Critic Donald Newlove would agree that Benchley is a master of suspense. He states "The climax does have a scenery-chewing, ball breaker harpooner, Quint, a storm, more blood..." (14). That is the whole point of the novel to keep people yearning to read. John Spurling says the shark is done with "alarming skill" and all the scenes are done with "exhilaration ". He also says each scene has a special "pitch of intensity". All this suspense leads to something usually the bloody massacre of a human being. This novel is used as an escape. Critic Gene Lyons would agree. She states "What one gets from Benchley, and this , I think, is the essence of his commercial genius, is escape." What she means by this is an escape from reality. One does not have to think about their problems if they are too busy contemplating the problems going on in the novel. This is what readers want to see and this is why Benchley is so successful.

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.

a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water. The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly" (12)

Some common words found in the essay are:
Michael Rogers, Sea Jaws, Peter Benchley, Brody Quint, John Spurling, Cousteau Jaws, White House, Matt Hooper, Benchley Critics, Benchley Benchley, peter benchley, carolyn riley detroit, gale research company, york times, detroit gale, moby dick, rpt clc, riley detroit, riley detroit gale, carolyn riley, detroit gale research, novel jaws, research company, gale research, rpt clc 4,
Approximate Word count = 2401
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)