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Chapter 19
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Beach, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tourism and Authenticity
Power, Control, and Human Nature
War, Violence, and Escapism
Secrecy, Fear, and Paranoia
Summary
Analysis
Richard has no idea where to go, but he decides to lead Étienne and Françoise away from the men with guns, hoping for the best. They walk for a few hours and reach a cliff overlooking lagoon by a waterfall. The cliff face would be difficult to climb down, and they all debate whether they can jump far enough to clear the rocks by the waterfall and make it down into the water. Richard finally gets tired of trying to decide and just jumps. The basin is so deep, he doesn’t touch the bottom, and he makes it up safely. As Étienne and Françoise are preparing to jump, a man with a big bear comes over to greet Richard and congratulate him on his jump. The man has an English accent and seems to be Caucasian but with very tan skin.
The waterfall seems to represent a major transition, a test of courage that also marks a point of no return. By finding the courage to jump over the waterfall, Richard believes that he is jumping into a new phase of his life. While there is some truth to this, the reality that Richard finds on the other side of the waterfall is more complicated than he ever expected. In many ways, then, the novel criticizes or even satirizes Richard’s belief that symbolic actions like jumping down a waterfall can fundamentally change who a person is.
Active
Themes
