When Does "JAWS" (1974) Take Place?
"JAWS" is a horror novel written by Peter Benchley that released February 1st, 1974. So when is "JAWS" set?
It takes place in the year:
We know this because, in the fourth scene of the book, as Police Chief Martin Brody and his wife Ellen are introduced, the narrator tells us, "Ellen Brody was thirty-six" and "Ellen was twenty-one when she met Brody. She had just finished her junior year at Wellesley". The scene goes on to tell the reader about her 'voted Most' category "in the yearbook for the class of 1953 at Miss Porter’s School".
1971 AD
We know this because, in the fourth scene of the book, as Police Chief Martin Brody and his wife Ellen are introduced, the narrator tells us, "Ellen Brody was thirty-six" and "Ellen was twenty-one when she met Brody. She had just finished her junior year at Wellesley". The scene goes on to tell the reader about her 'voted Most' category "in the yearbook for the class of 1953 at Miss Porter’s School".
If Ellen Brody was between her junior year and a planned senior year of college (as is typical for someone 21-years-old in the United States of America) at the real-world institution Wellesley College, then it was 3 years past her high school graduation when she met the future Police Chief. If she graduated from the real-world preparatory school Miss Porter’s School in 1953 AD, it must have been 1956 AD when they met.
1953 + 3 = 1956.
1953 + 3 = 1956.
Since she is 36 at the time of the narrative and 21 when she met Brody, 15 years have passed.
36 - 21 = 15.
So the main action takes place 15 years after the couple met, in 1971 AD.
1956 + 15 = 1971.
More specifically, very early in the book the narrator says, "The water was colder than the night air, for it was only mid-June." So it is presumably mid-June of 1971 AD at the start of the novel. Conclusively, "The New York Times" article Brody reads about events earlier in the novel reads "AMITY, L.I. June 20" at the top. Halfway through, the narrator speculates, "opening the beaches for the Fourth of July weekend that would begin the day after tomorrow." July 4th, 1971 AD was a Sunday, so it must be the June 30th, 1971 AD. So it is certainly early July of 1971 AD at the end.
It was adapted to film in 1975.
