Jaws & Moby Dick- Difference between the Literature and the Trivial - Essay Example

of the English of the Concerned 13 January Jaws & Moby Dick- Difference between the Literature and the Trivial In abroad context, literature could mean anything that a person could consider a written text to be. In that context, one of the definitions of literature furnished by The Free Online Dictionary is, “imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value (The Free Online Dictionary 1).” However, to grasp the true meaning of literature as per this or any other such definition will be utterly naive and simplistic.

This realization eventually opens us up to the question as to what is literariness, or what makes a body of literature to be characterized as literature? Although, this is not the alpha and omega of the concept called literariness, I believe that for a written body of work to be called a literary text, it is imperative that, that work has the capacity to engage human consciousness in all its multiple dimensions, it should have the capacity to make the human perception proceed with the possible and the reasonable to the extent to which it can and than making it take a leap of faith beyond the conscious and the perceptible, to bring out the novel meanings, insights, ideas and perceptions inherent within that text.

In that context, Jaws and Moby-Dick are two apt examples to be considered. Whereas, Jaws is a thriller of impulsive importance that engages the human perception with the unpredictability, raciness and variety of its scope, Moby-Dick does qualify to be labeled as a timeless work of literature that engrossingly and emphatically allures the human consciousness with its multiple facets that are plot, characterization, language and symbolism. So far as the plot of Jaws is concerned, its appeal is superficial, shallow and time bound.

Though the plots in Moby-Dick and Jaws revolve around a mammoth white fish and the obsession of a character with the actual hunting down of that fish, the similarity in these two works of literature is limited only to that. In Jaws, Peter Benchley arranges the events and sequences within the plot to achieve a plausible target effect that are awe, intimidation and curiosity. The intended impact of the plot is impulsive and simplistic in its approach, as the characters in the story utterly fail to engage in actions and thought that could bring the reader to consider dispositional and moral concepts, which are of timeless relevance and import.

In contrast, Moby-Dick is a work of literature in which the actual plot is characterized by multiple layers of sequences and events, which are ordered and arranged with artful dexterity towards the attainment of multifaceted, pithy and universal, artistic and emotional effects (Sten 38). Unlike Jaws, Moby-Dick does not rely on run of the mill contemporary issues like the vehemence of nature, extramarital affairs, crony capitalism, personality clashes and suspense in a way that is too obvious, facile, narrowly stimulating and shallow.

No wonder, a male engaged in a midlife crisis, a woman resorting to an extramarital affair, a quirky shark hunter, a humane biologist and to top it all a white shark bent on targeting the human existence at a sea side tourist destination do make enough of a baggage for a contemporary best seller. However, to emerge as a work of literature requires much more depth and suction. Whereas Jaws relies on a temporal sequence of issues and incidents to commercially engage the reader’s attention, Moby-Dick amply exhibits the capacity of the writer to order motivations and causes in both a methodical order and manner with a tremendous capacity to delve on the ephemeral aspects of human concern, touching on the deep seated human lack of certainty and the evil side of human consciousness.

The appeal of Moby-Dick is something which though graspable by words, leaves ample that could only be felt in the deeper recesses of human mind and heart. The other literary aspect that makes Jaws a contemporary work of commercial and entertainment related relevance, with scarce ability to emerge as a timeless work of literature is the characterization (Sten 27). The characters in Jaws are more or less flat and two dimensional, scarcely capable of conveying things that touch beyond the temporal layers of human understanding.

In comparison, the characters in Moby-Dick are multifaceted, full bodied and round, capable of carrying the weight of ideas and concepts that the writer intends to convey, besides being engaged in the issues and actions imminent on them. The varied characters in Jaws like Martin Brody, Larry Vaughan, Matt Hooper and Quint are essentially flat and two dimensional, brewing in the juice of the immediate issues and challenges facing them, so immersed in the temporary aspects of a racy and suspense laden plot, to be unable to metamorphose into something that is universal and far important than their individual existence.

In comparison, most of the characters in Moby-Dick are it Captain Ahab, Fedallah, or even Moby Dick tend to be very complex and are affiliated to varied motivations, and the writer goes and extra mile to construct these characters with apt subtlety and plurality. The net result is that characters in Moby-Dick not only act and speak for merely themselves, luckily accruing reader’s interest through shallow violence and suspense, but rather emerge to be characters signifying universal human issues like evil and goodness, imbued with immense symbolic significance.

Thereby, to put it in a few words, it is not a must that good story could also turn out to be a literary work. In other words, the mere capacity of a text to engage human interest and rake in profits does not necessarily make it a literary masterpiece. Yet, it also does not mean that an avid reader should not engage with texts that are not literary. Eventually it is the perusal of both the literary and non literary works that allow a student of literature to develop a sense of context, so as to be able to identify works whose appeal is universal and everlasting.

Works Cited Sten, Christopher. Sounding the Whale: Moby-Dick as Epic Novel. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1996. Print. The Free Online Dictionary. Literature. 2012. Web. 13 January 2013.