I Survived The Shark Attacks Of 1916

“[A] shark simply will not attack a human. That cherry pie over there is more likely to attack you than a shark is.”

In the wake of learning about the first shark attack, Uncle Jerry tries to calm down Chet and his friends by telling them that sharks do not pose a threat to human life. In this passage, Tarshis illustrates the widely held misconceptions in the past due to a lack of knowledge about sharks.

“‘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.”

“Killer eyes” is a phrase repeated throughout the text, both by Captain Wilson and Chet as he comes face to face with the shark. Captain Wilson says this at the end of his shark attack survival story. Despite surviving his encounter with the shark, Captain Wilson still carries trauma from the event. Looking at Captain Wilson, Chet feels that the old man is reliving the experience, as if he can still see the shark’s enormous form in front of him. This passage shows that it is not easy to forget the experience of surviving a shark attack, especially in a culture that refuses to believe or give credence to such a story, as is the case with Captain Wilson.

“No, it wasn’t the shark that scared him. It was the idea of being alone in the middle of the ocean. Strange, but Chet could imagine that feeling. He’d been traveling around the country with Mama and Papa most of his life.”

After hearing Captain Wilson’s tale, Chet reflects that the most disturbing part was the idea that Captain Wilson was the only survivor on the ship, forced to survive alone in the ocean. Chet identifies with Captain Wilson’s isolation, as Chet often feels lonely and isolated himself due to the frequent moves that he and his parents have undertaken throughout his 10 years. Like Captain Wilson, lost at sea after a bad storm, Chet too feels adrift and unmoored from any sense of belonging, which causes him great anxiety.

“Uncle Jerry was standing on the train platform when Chet got off, a huge grin on his face. ‘It’s about time,’ he said to Chet, wrapping him up in a huge hug that went on until after the train pulled out of the station. From that first day, Uncle Jerry made him feel right at home.”

Chet believes that Uncle Jerry agreed to take Chet in only after his mother asked, but as Chet recalls the day Uncle Jerry picked him up from the train station, he remarks on how warm and welcome Uncle Jerry made him feel. Uncle Jerry gives him an extended hug and from that day onward never made Chet feel anything less than at home with him. This is a significant moment of characterization for Uncle Jerry, who is initially introduced as a business owner. Despite this, Chet still harbors feelings of insecurity and loneliness as he struggles to believe that Uncle Jerry genuinely wants to take care of him. Chet’s unwillingness to believe this, despite Uncle Jerry’s actions, speaks to the severity of Chet’s anxieties.

“Would he ever really belong anywhere? Or would he always be on his own, a tiny speck in the middle of the ocean?”

Chet once again evokes the image of Captain Wilson, adrift and alone at sea; the image represents his own worries that he will never find his place in the world. After a childhood marked by frequent moves and following his father’s repeatedly failed business ventures, Chet feels isolated from those around him. He struggles to connect with others, and when he does, he believes that they will leave him or find him lacking in some fundamental way, leaving him alone again. This highlights the major internal conflict of the novel.

“‘I don’t know,’ Chet said. ‘I hate moving around so much.’ Hearing those words startled Chet. He felt that way, but he’d never said it out loud. Not even to Uncle Jerry. He hoped the guys didn’t think he was bellyaching.”

When one of his friends says that Chet is lucky to have had all these experiences, Chet reveals for the first time aloud that he does not feel that way and that he dislikes having moved around so much. Chet’s anxiety is also on display in this quote, in that he does not feel comfortable being vulnerable and worries that his new friends will reject him for expressing a truthful emotion and perceive him as a complainer. Tarshis uses the word “bellyaching” to reflect the setting and time period, since Chet speaks informally using contemporary colloquialisms.

“Chet’s cheeks were bright red. His hands were shaking. How could he have thought these guys wanted to be his friends? They just wanted someone to pick on. That was the only reason they’d invited him to the creek.”

While angry at Dewey, Sid, and Monty’s prank about the shark while at the creek, Chet directs his true anger inward. In this passage, he feels ridiculous for thinking that anyone would want to be his friend, and their prank is only further evidence to him that he is unworthy of friendship and connection. Tarshis uses a rhetorical question to highlight Chet’s uncertainty about his friendships; he does not outright state that the boys do not want to be his friend, but he mulls the idea over in his head.

“‘It means they like you, that you’re one of them […]. Now they’re expecting you to get them back. Didn’t you know that’s how it works?’ How could Chet know? He’d never had any real friends before. He wanted to know more.”

After hearing about the boys’ prank on Chet, Uncle Jerry tries to help Chet by encouraging him to see the prank from a different point of view. This revelation surprises Chet, who has never had real friends before and therefore feels uninformed in the unspoken social rules and cues of friendship. With Uncle Jerry’s encouragement, Chet feels inspired to try and retaliate with his own prank to solidify these burgeoning social connections.

“I didn’t see him until after he struck me the first time…That was when I yelled…I thought he had gone on, but he only turned and shot back at me [and]…snipped my left leg off…He yanked me clear under before he let go…He came back at me…and he shook me like a terrier shakes a rat.”

This quote comes from a New Jersey Herald newspaper article reporting on a second shark attack that claims the life of Charles Bruder. Before his death resulting from blood loss, Bruder took a moment to describe the shark that attacked him. The ellipses literally suggest Bruder’s difficulty talking as he dies, but they represent the chaos of the bites happening again and again since there are uncertain pauses followed by dramatic commentary. The scene echoes Captain Wilson’s story, specifically the shark toying with Bruder before attacking, and lends credence to Wilson’s claims.

“Imagine Uncle Jerry being afraid of a made-up monster! Chet smiled to himself. Maybe there was hope for him yet.”

Chet has great admiration for his Uncle Jerry, a former baseball star and small-town celebrity. When he learns from Uncle Jerry’s friends that he used to be afraid of a local legend called the Creek Devil, Chet feels the first semblance of hope since the boys’ prank on him at the creek. The alliteration of “made-up monster” makes the idea seem more whimsical than sinister, highlighting Chet’s increasing bravery.

“His prank had worked better than he could have imagined. But it was all wrong. And here he was, covered with stinking mud, all alone.”

Chet performs an elaborate prank on Sid, Dewey, and Monty. The boys’ reaction is overwhelmingly negative, and they desert Chet, who realizes that his attempts at connection and friendship have backfired. Chet interprets this as further evidence of his fate of social isolation. The “stinking mud” provides a sensory description that reflects Chet’s feelings of unlovability.

“Chet took a deep breath. A spider scurried across the floor and disappeared into one of the cracks. Lucky spider.”

Uncle Jerry and Chet debrief his failed prank on the porch. Chet watches a spider crawl and disappear under the boards of the porch, and in that moment, Chet wishes nothing more than to be that spider himself, disappearing. The short, simple phrase, “[l]ucky spider,” suggests Chet’s despondence as he cannot articulate his feelings in a longer, more descriptive manner.

“You and I are buddies, kiddo. Always were. I was lonely without you all these years.”

Uncle Jerry expresses his gratitude that Chet lives with him now. Chet cannot believe it when Uncle Jerry tells him that he was lonely before Chet came to live with him, because Chet holds his uncle in such high regard. Tarshis uses informal diction when reporting Uncle Jerry’s speech—“buddies,” “kiddo”—to reflect Uncle Jerry’s desire to build a connection with Chet.

“A person has to face up to things. You never solve anything by running away.”

Chet has never lived in one place for long, and as a result is familiar with being able to run away from his problems when things become complicated. Uncle Jerry offers this lesson to Chet: He can find friendship and connection in Elm Hills, but he must be willing to wade through the often-messy parts of relationships. This passage hence suggests The Role of Friendship in Overcoming Adversity.

“It was another scorching day, the hottest yet […] Uncle Jerry decided to close the diner early. All the ice in the restaurant had melted. The milk had curdled. You could just about cook a flapjack on the kitchen floor.”

The heat is a motif in the text, highlighting The Intersection of Human Activity and the Natural World. As part of the natural world, the heat’s increasing oppressiveness forces people to try to find a remedy, such as going into the water. This quote illustrates the extent of the heat and its effect on those in town, forcing people to dive in despite the dangers lurking in the water’s depths.

“The water around him looked funny, like it was filled with red smoke […] A cold terror rose up inside him. He suddenly had the feeling that someone–or something–was nearby, watching him. And then he saw it. A gray fin.”

In his first interaction with the shark, Chet comes away with a cut on his chest from the shark’s sandpaper skin. The latter part of this quote echoes the first chapter, the suspense that steadily rises as Chet realizes what it is he is seeing. The “red smoke” is Chet’s blood, but because he does not yet have context for what is happening to him, his mind can only make sense of this extraordinary experience through metaphor; this is an example of delayed decoding, since there is a gap between the description and the clarification, building suspense.

“He was running now, his heart hammering, a voice booming through his mind. Get out of the water! Get out of the water! Get out of the water!”

After seeing the shark, Chet runs for his life and survival. A voice echoes in his head to tell him to get out of the water and run. This voice is an example of his survival instinct, one that is central to the I Survived series and kicks in at a crucial moment in the text. Chet moves as if on autopilot, not entirely aware of his actions other than what will give him the best chance at survival.

“Nobody would ever believe him. For the next hundred years, people around Elm Hills would be talking about Chet Roscow, the kid who had said there was a shark in the creek. He’d be a big joke, like the Captain was. Chet felt like running away, far away. All the way to California.”

Although Chet knows that he saw a shark in the creek, he also understands that the people in his community will not believe him. Because of The Difficulty of Changing Public Perception, Chet worries that people will react to his story the same way that they did Captain Wilson’s, rendering Chet and his terrifying experience no more than a joke. Again, the symbol of California takes root in Chet’s mind as a place that offers escape.

“Chet was almost out of the water when something caught his leg. At first it felt like a giant hand was grabbing him. Then it felt like hot nails were boring into his calf.”

This passage describes the feeling of the shark’s attack: first the pressure of the latch and then the “hot nails” of the shark’s teeth. While not an overly gruesome description of the attack, this simile nonetheless illustrates the severity of the shark’s bite and Chet’s reaction to it.

“Chet realized it wasn’t the ketchup. It was blood pouring from his leg. The fog around him grew thicker, until Chet couldn’t see or hear a thing.”

The thought about ketchup is another example of delayed decoding to build suspense, as Chet revises his description from condiment to blood. In the immediate aftermath of the shark attack, Chet’s mind attempts to insulate him from the bodily harm he has experienced. Chet experiences the scene as if through a fog. Even though Chet realizes that he has blood pouring from his leg, the fog of his mind sweeps in to try and protect him from the full extent of the horrors.

“The terror faded some when he was awake. But somehow that shark was always lurking. Its black killer eyes watching him, its bloody teeth glistening. Chet had never felt so alone.”

After waking up in the hospital post-shark attack, Chet suffers lingering trauma from his experience and physical injuries. Although he is now safe from physical harm, this quote shows the mental duress he still grapples with, especially when he is asleep. In his dreams, he cannot escape having to relive the shark attack. The motif of “killer eyes” connects his lingering memories with Captain Wilson’s.

“In that quiet moment, Chet realized something: he and the guys would always be tied together. By the terrible things they’d seen. By what they’d done for each other.”

Chet frequently experiences feelings of isolation and struggles to make friends because he has never lived in one place for long. His burgeoning friendship with Sid, Dewey, and Monty is central to the text and, in this passage, Chet realizes that his bond with the boys has solidified after the experience they shared together. This epitomizes the resolution section of the text, as the internal conflict gives over to Chet’s feeling of peace, knowing that he has forged a lifelong bond with these three boys.

“But in the end, the beast couldn’t get him. Because Chet hadn’t been alone. Because his friends had reached out for him. They’d held him tight. And they never let him go.”

An important theme in the text is the role of friendship in overcoming adversity. Throughout the text, Chet’s biggest anxiety is that he is going to be alone or fail to find his place in the world because of his transient past. This passage illustrates that he has put these fears to rest because of his friends. Although traumatizing, the boys’ unwillingness to let Chet go during the attack shows Chet that he is not alone. Without their help, his outcome would have been different and therefore Chet has solid proof that he has found friendship and belonging.