Page "The Beach (novel)" Paragraph 7

A few days later, a funeral is held for Sten near the jungle waterfall, and Sal gives a decisive speech which goes some way to restoring social harmony within the camp.

She announces that it is the 11th of September, and that they will thus be celebrating the Tet festival in 3 days time-this will be the sixth birthday for the beach community and she suggests they celebrate it as a " fresh start " for the group.

Being alone on the mainland of the island since his transfer to Jed's detail, Richard now begins to have hallucinations in which Daffy appears: they talk regularly and begin to patrol the part of the island which Richard refers to as the DMZ together.

Richard comes to appreciate that Daffy killed himself because he could neither endure the slow unravelling of his elitist vision of the beach as the community grew, nor a return to normal life, and that he himself is falling prey to that way of thinking.

Richard also realizes that Daffy gave him the map so other travellers would find the beach.

Daffy describes this act as " euthanizing " the secluded beach community, and Richard realizes he was merely a pawn in Daffy's scheme.

This comes to a peak following the arrival of the American / German group, by raft.

Unlike Richard, Étienne and Françoise who managed to overcome the five main obstacles in getting to the beach, the newcomers never make it past the fourth hurdle-the marijuana field guarded by the Thai farmers.

Richard witnesses them being first beaten and then taken away.

Afraid to see any further, Richard runs away, but hears the ominous sound of fired gunshots, signifying that the Thai farmers have killed the intruders.