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Chapter 31
Themes
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 checks under his shorts and realizes he’s tanned a lot in his time on the beach. He talks with Étienne about how it was definitely worth the effort of trying to find the beach. They already have enough fish for the day, so Richard goes to meet up with Keaty and find the tree by the waterfall.
While Richard does seem to genuinely enjoy many aspects of the beach, he also has lingering doubts about people like Bugs, and Daffy’s death (and what drove Daffy away from the island) still gives him pause. In this conversation with Étienne, Richard seems to be trying to reassure himself that finding the beach was worthwhile—and that Étienne agrees with him.
Themes
Keaty shows Richard a tree by the waterfall that has some carvings on it. It has the names Bugs, Sylvester, and Daffy, along with four zeroes. Keaty explains that “Sylvester” is Sal. They were the founders of the beach community, arriving in 1989. Some say they had heard rumors of a hidden lagoon, while others say they discovered the place by chance. It took until 1990 before they actually started building a camp in the area. They were tired of how touristy destinations kept getting, with Daffy refusing to go to Indonesia because of Bali.
Sylvester is also a name from Looney Tunes, showing once again how fantasy and cartoons united the founders of the beach, even if they originally took those names ironically. Daffy’s refusal to go anywhere in Indonesia due to Bali, a major tourist attraction, shows the strength of his principles but also the arbitrariness, as a major tourist city like Bali certainly wouldn’t represent Indonesia as a whole.
Themes
Keaty arrived in 1993, when most of the others were already there. In the time since, only Jed and the Swedish men (Sten, Karl, and Christo) have arrived. Keaty explains that the “0000” marking was Daffy’s joke—it was his way of saying that the year of their arrival, 1989, was actually year zero.
