There are more ferocious beasts in nature, but when it comes to epic tales of Man versus animal, it's hard to beat a big fish. Roy Scheider, who died on Sunday, starred in many movies. But he will be remembered most vividly as the Amity Island police chief who, when he first caught a glimpse of the shark, Jaws, gasped: “We're gonna need a bigger boat.” The 1975 blockbuster, like so many other tales of Man's battles with giants of the deep, resonates because it feels like an allegory of grander quests.
Many men go fishing all of their lives, noted Henry David Thoreau, without knowing that it is not fish they are after. Herman Melville's broody Captain Ahab steers the Pequod towards the white whale Moby-Dick in a tale that explores themes of good and evil, vengeance, the goals and purpose of life, and the miseries that befall those who abandon all to their obsessions. It is not only the Pequod that is a ship at sea.
When God asks a reluctant Jonah to prophesy to the city of Nineveh, Jonah tries to give God the slip by taking to sea, only to land his ship in a fierce storm. Once the sailors realise that Jonah's presence on board is a curse, they hurl him into the waves where he is swallowed by a whale. When, after a year, Jonah asks God's forgiveness, the whale finally vomits Jonah out. In Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, an old Cuban fisherman battles with a giant marlin in an epic struggle heavy with Christian imagery.
Why do such stories strike so powerful a chord? Because we all know what it feels like to be confronted with a challenge when we know in our hearts that we're gonna need a bigger boat.