46 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren TarshisI Survived The Shark Attacks Of 1916
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “July 12, 1916, Elm Hills, New Jersey in the Matawan Creek”
Ten-year-old Chet Roscow is swimming alone in the Matawan Creek when he has the sinking feeling that someone, or something, is watching him. He looks around and sees a gray fin “slicing through the water like a knife” (1-2). He wonders for a moment if it could be a shark and then reminds himself that Elm Hills is miles away from the ocean and that there is no way a shark could make its way into this small creek.
Chet watches as the object makes its way closer to him and Chet can see that it is an enormous shark, with “black eyes staring up through the water. Killer eyes” (2). Without hesitation, Chet breaks for the shore, kicking frantically. On land, he looks back over his shoulder to see the shark just behind him, its jaws open wide to display rows of sharp white teeth.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Nine Days Earlier… July 3, 1916, 9:00 A.M. The Elm Hills Diner”
Chet finishes working the breakfast rush at his Uncle Jerry’s diner. Chet feels his sore feet but is happy, remembering that Uncle Jerry is paying him 15 cents a day to work. Despite the busy work, Chet feels that he is making friends and settling into his new home with Uncle Jerry, with whom he has lived since the previous January while his parents are in California pursuing a business.
The door to the diner opens and Chet sees a few of his classmates, Dewey, Sid, and Monty enter, taking a brief stop before heading to work at the local tile factory. Chet is excited to see them because, while they have been at school together for months, he has only just gotten to know them better and wants to be their friend. The three boys clamor to tell Chet about a recent shark attack that took place in Beach Haven, a town 70 miles south of Elm Hills near the Atlantic Ocean. The boys speak over one another as they explain that a shark attacked a man who died from his injuries.
Uncle Jerry appears from the kitchen and the boys stand up straighter in a sign of deference to Uncle Jerry, who is well-known in Elm Hills for his former prowess as a baseball star before a championship game injury left him with a slight limp. Uncle Jerry assumes that the boys are trying to pull a prank, which they are well known for at school. Monty insists that they are telling the truth and produces a copy of the New Jersey Herald, a local newspaper that bears the headline: “KILLER SHARK ATTACKS SWIMMER!” (8). Chet reads the story about 25-year-old Charles Vansant who lost his life on July 1 while on vacation with his family. The article reports that a shark attacked Vansant while he was swimming in chest-high water and that he succumbed to his injuries despite the intervention of a lifeguard. The article concludes by stating that this is the first fatal shark attack ever recorded on the northeastern shore of the United States.
As they finish reading the article, Uncle Jerry laughs, still thinking the article to be a hoax. He states that it is a “proven fact” that a shark will not attack a human. Uncle Jerry tells the boys about a rich man, Hermann Oelrichs, who offered a $500 reward to anyone who could produce a case of a shark attacking a human on the northeast coast after jumping into shark-infested waters from his boat.
From the end of the counter, a former whaling ship captain, Captain Wilson, states that Uncle Jerry has it wrong and that some sharks will attack humans. Chet notes that Wilson’s eyes are sharp as he tells them that a white shark almost killed him once in his youth. Uncle Jerry seems skeptical, but the boys beg Wilson to tell him his story and he agrees.
Chapter 3 Summary
Captain Wilson begins his story in 1852 at the tail-end of a two-year whaling journey. While sailing home, Wilson and the crew encountered a storm and Wilson survived only by clutching onto a barrel. In the morning, Wilson was the only one left, “a tiny speck in the middle of the ocean” (14). At this point, Wilson saw a shark fin emerge from the water, encircling him closer until Wilson could see the shark’s “killer eyes” (14). The shark dove under the water and scraped against Wilson’s leg, causing him to bleed, and Wilson explains that a shark’s skin is rough as sandpaper. As the shark opened its jaws to attack, Wilson speared it in the eye with a harpoon tip. The shark swam off. Wilson concludes his story by stating that he needs to get home to his wife, Deborah, even though she has been dead for at least 20 years.
As Wilson departs, Uncle Jerry looks after him with pity, stating that Wilson’s mind is like “Swiss cheese” and stating that his story is not true despite being engaging. Regardless of the veracity of Wilson’s story, Chet thinks about it all day, finding the most disturbing part not the shark attack itself but the idea of being stranded alone in the middle of the ocean. Chet thinks that he can imagine that feeling because of his life spent traveling around the country with his parents, his father always chasing some new dubious business venture. Chet had spent years never settling in one place for long until his mama decided that he should stay with Uncle Jerry rather than making the trek to California.
Chet recalls being anxious about staying with Uncle Jerry at first, worried that Uncle Jerry would barely remember him after not seeing him for years. Instead, Chet found Uncle Jerry waiting for him on the train platform, wrapping him in a huge hug and making him feel immediately at home. Despite his comfort with Uncle Jerry, Chet misses his parents and knows that he should not get too comfortable in Elm Hills because, before too long, they will have him join them in California. Chet wonders if he will ever truly belong anywhere or if he will be like Wilson, stranded alone in the middle of the ocean.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The opening chapters of the novel introduce important plot elements and themes that develop throughout the text. A core theme of I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916 is The Intersection of Human Activity and the Natural World. In the first chapter, protagonist Chet Roscow comes face to face with a shark, a flash forward to events later in the text. By beginning in medias res and placing this climactic scene at the beginning of the text, Tarshis not only aims to hook readers but illustrates that humans and animals share spaces, a point which is central to the story.
Human activity and the natural world interact throughout the text in the form of multiple shark attacks that take place in New Jersey waters. These interactions leave human casualties behind, but it becomes clear that, despite reports of deadly shark attacks in the area, many people remain unconcerned. Chet’s Uncle Jerry goes as far as to state that “[t]hat cherry pie over there is more likely to attack you than a shark” (10-11), which illustrates how pervasive misinformation about shark lethality was at the time the story takes place. Uncle Jerry’s statement points to another important theme, The Difficulty of Changing Public Perception. The Elm Hills residents illustrate society’s lack of knowledge and understanding about sharks. At the time, “[t]here were no real marine biologists [...] no scuba gear or submarines for underwater exploration” (88-89). The Elm Hills residents therefore approach the reports of shark attacks, and people in town like Captain Wilson, who tells his own story about a near-miss encounter with a shark, with a sense of incredulity and skepticism. Even reports and eye-witness accounts struggle to change minds until several people die.
While Chet’s shark encounter will be the climactic moment of the text, these early chapters set the stage for how Chet ends up in the creek with the shark. Chet’s sense of isolation and loneliness is a driving force in his life. While he has spent much of his childhood alone, forced to follow the whims of his father’s many failed business ventures, Chet longs to cultivate a sense of home and belonging. He is beginning to feel at home with Uncle Jerry but still struggles to make connections with peers and cannot help but wonder if he will “ever really belong anywhere” (20). This establishes another theme within the text: The Role of Friendship in Overcoming Adversity. Throughout the following chapters, Chet will learn the importance of trust and friendship when it comes to surviving dangerous circumstances. These early chapters build on aspects of the coming-of-age genre and establish that Chet has a long way to go before learning this lesson.
These chapters introduce important characters, including Captain Wilson, an old whaling ship captain who had his own experience with a shark. Whereas many people in town are convinced that the reports of shark attacks are a hoax, Captain Wilson believes in the severity of the attacks from the beginning. From these early chapters, Chet identifies with aspects of Captain Wilson’s character. The townspeople marginalize Captain Wilson because of his age and diminishing memory. When Wilson finishes his story about the shark, it is not the near-attack itself that strikes fear in Chet’s heart, but the idea that he, too, could “always be on his own, a tiny speck in the middle of the ocean” (20). Tarshis introduces the motif of the shark’s “killer eyes” as Wilson recounts his harrowing tale: “‘Killer eyes.’ The captain was looking out the window now, like he expected to see that shark with its open jaws pressed against the glass. ‘Killer eyes,’ he repeated quietly” (14-15). Even decades later, Captain Wilson can recall the image of the shark’s killer eyes and how they made him feel. This contextualizes a passage from Chapter 1 when Chet describes the shark emerging from the water: “[B]lack eyes staring up through the water. Killer eyes” (2). After learning Captain Wilson’s story in Chapter 3, Chet’s initial description of the shark’s “killer eyes” emphasizes he and Wilson’s shared connection and implicitly suggests that Wilson’s story is true.
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