The Beach

Etienne is Françoise’s boyfriend and one of Richard’s closest friends. They go in search of the beach together. When Richard meets Etienne, Etienne comments on how dull and similar Thailand turned out to be and wishes for something more. Richard mentions his map, and Etienne is immediately interested: “Etienne, I imagined, was hearing the sound of the surf on this hidden beach or hiding from the Marine park warden as made his way to the island” (26). He is a brave, loyal, and caring man who does no wrong. He is always willing to call others out on their immoralities and is the only one to suggest taking Karl to the mainland for help. On the beach, Etienne is a fisher and spends most of his time out in the water. He maintains a childlike curiosity of the world around him. After Etienne sees Richard kiss Françoise, he reacts with anger, but soon apologizes and agrees to leave the island with Richard. He continues to be loyal to Richard despite knowing that Richard has done terrible things for the sake of the beach.

Françoise is one of Richard’s closest friends and initial companions who joins him on the journey to the beach. She and Etienne are French, and both came in search of adventure. Françoise is a determined woman who proves herself to be bold, brave, and subtly flirtatious, and Richard finds himself falling for her quickly. She has no doubt about making the swim to the beach, and fully embraces island life like it is second nature. Over the course of their time on the beach, Richard and Françoise slowly grow apart as Richard becomes more involved with other people and falls deeper into his delusions. When the time comes to leave the beach, however, Françoise comes to defend Richard from the people stabbing him and joins him and the others as they escape the island forever.

Jed is one of Richard’s best friends on the island. Initially, Jed is a mysterious figure who spends most of his time in the jungle, and Richard knows little about him. When Richard is sent to Koh Pha Ngan with Jed, the two find they have similar personalities and both came to the island uninvited (although Jed jokes, “Maybe this place found you” (153)). Jed was the first person to reach the island on his own, and it caused a panic in the camp. He has never felt welcome there as a result, and thus relishes his time on the lookout. Daffy despises Jed for this reason. Like Richard, Jed enjoys missions and reconnaissance, and he quickly becomes a loyal companion for Richard, keeping all his secrets until the very end. Jed looks after Christo while he is dying and is the only one who seems to truly care about him. When Richard decides to leave, he suffocates Christo to free Jed, and the two remain best friends in the outside world.

Keaty is a beach dweller and the first person that Richard bonds with on the island. They initially connect over their mutual love of video games, as Keaty is the only one with a Game Boy on the island. Keaty starts out as a gardener but soon manages to convince Sal to move him to fishing. Keaty catches a dead squid and provides it for dinner, causing the entire camp to become violently ill. He is a nervous man who frequently has bouts of embarrassment, and on this occasion spends the entire night on the beach alone. Thankfully, Keaty has a strong sense of humor that allows him to maintain his mental health through the harrowing experiences that take place. Keaty is loyal to Richard, and when the two of them decide to leave the island, they remain friends long into the future.

Daffy is the catalyst for the destruction of the beach, and it is never clear whether he intended this or not. When Richard first meets Daffy, he seems to have a mental health condition. He leaves a map to the beach for Richard, and Richard then finds Daffy dead by his own hand. Daffy’s presence lingers throughout the novel, both in Richard’s mind as an active hallucination and through Richard himself, as Richard slowly starts to remind the other beach dwellers of the lost Daffy. By giving Richard the map, Daffy initiates a series of events that lead to the end of the beach. While Richard lives on the beach, Daffy acts as a sort of evil guardian angel, keeping Richard away from death but also leading him to commit heinous acts. He initially only shows up in Richard’s dreams, but before long Richard is seeing him in the waking hours, too. Daffy has a deep love of war, just like Richard, and together they become like soldiers in combat. It is through his conversations with the deceased Daffy that Richard finally realizes his efforts to protect the beach were fruitless: “I never offered you anything but Vietnam and only because you asked for it. It so happens you wanted the beach, too. But if you could have had Vietnam and kept the beach, it wouldn’t have been Vietnam” (378).

Sal is the unofficial leader of the camp at the beach. She is “Buddha-like,” keeps a poker face almost all the time, and seems to harbor many dark secrets. She is willing to lie, kill, manipulate, and do whatever else is necessary to preserve the beach’s secrecy and culture. When dealing with the beach dwellers, she acts kind and fair, but behind closed doors, she asks terrible things of them, such as asking Richard to kill Karl. Richard finds Sal difficult to read because one moment she seems to be punishing him, and the next she is lying to protect him. She is calculating and intelligent, and it is not until the night of Tet, after a long series of dramatic and traumatic events, that Sal has a crisis and her perception of reality shatters.

Bugs is Sal’s boyfriend and one of the founders of the beach. He came to the beach while exploring with Sal and Daffy, and together they started a culture there. Each of them traveled the world in search of others who would be suitable to join them, and slowly invited a few more people to the island. Bugs is the leader of the carpentry department on the beach and takes his position very seriously. He is a skilled carpenter who built the longhouse and figured out how to make trees grow to shield the encampment from passing planes. Richard dislikes Bugs the moment he meets him. Bugs is competitive and arrogant, but the others on the island seem to tolerate it as a harmless aspect of his personality. Richard is unusually perturbed by it. When the camp is poisoned by a bad squid, Bugs becomes so ill that he starts “metaphorically and literally losing his shit” (264). Bugs begs Richard to help him, but Richard tells Bugs to help himself. On the night of the Tet festival, Bugs is the one to initiate the decapitation and dissection of the bodies, and he is stabbed by one of Richard’s friends. Richard is certain that Bugs died that night.

There are three Swedish men who live on the beach: Karl, Christo, and Sten. They keep mostly to themselves, spending their days out on the ocean fishing for large fish and sharks. Richard knows little about them, but they become the source of one of the beach’s greatest tragedies when they are victims of a major shark attack. When one of the Swedes, Karl, is deeply affected by his friend’s death, Richard refers to him as “the albatross around our necks” (340), as he is tangible evidence that all is not idyllic on the island. Karl is ironically the only one with a normal reaction to the incident. His shock is common and understandable, contrasting with the strange and unfeeling way that the others simply forget about it. When Karl finally decides to leave the island, stealing the boat and disappearing, Richard comments on the clarity of his actions.