20 Things You Somehow Missed In Jaws
8. The Moby Dick References
Before the shark, there was the whale – at least that was a tagline for the 1956 movie “Moby Dick”. Because the film/book was about a crew who are on a mission to kill a large sea creature, the producers of Jaws wanted to make a few hidden references and homages to the adventure story.
Some examples include Quint singing “Farewell Spanish Ladies”, an old sea shanty, which was also sung in the original novel. There also appears to be a boutique on the Amity Island high street called “Tashtego”, a name of one of the harpooners in Moby Dick.
More obvious, Quint is similar to the classic novel’s Captain Ahab – the former is obsessed with killing sharks, whilst Ahab is infatuated with hunting whales. Both seek revenge and both are killed by their enemy creatures.