The Novel the Beach - Essay Example

? 01 December Analysis of the novel The Beach: The Beach is a widely acknowledged travel novel authored by Alex Garland and focuses on the journey of a young British man Richard who attempts to escape the real world through backpacking across Thailand. The novel explicates how Richard spends his time after landing in Thailand. He receives a map from a wildly intoxicated traveller Daffy who commits suicide later in the same hotel at which Richard is staying. Later, together with two other people the protagonist of this novel engages in a search to find an untouched island according to directions in the map. The island is apparently a kind of paradise on earth. After he manages to find the anticipated island, it is contemplated how he spends his time at an idyllic beach accompanied by other international backpackers and what he observes during that time. The book delves deep into the issue of drug use. Many useful insights into certain ways by which the culture of Thailand has degenerated are provided by Garland to explain that the paradise he was searching for was actually a depraved place promoting shallow overindulgence. The purpose of this essay is to explore at length the particular theme of drugs or sex trade in Thailand in reference to the novel by Garland. After finally arriving on the beach from Koh Samui and making their way through dense jungles, Richard and his friends find themselves in the midst of a small community on a deserted island which has totally cut all social ties to the external world. This community apparently lives by no code of conduct which is an essential part of any society. Life is at a standstill and the pursuit for pleasure is the only thing which seems to be alive on the island. The self-sufficient community inhabiting the island is led by a couple, Sal and Bugs, who together with Daffy originally discovered the place and then started permanently living their absolutely bored by the practical world. After them, myriad self-indulgent hippies from across the globe looking for hedonistic and free lifestyle started gathering at this this idyllic territory untouched by the world. Sometime after arriving on the beach, Richard starts intently observing the weird living style of the social deviants and stoned rebels by whom he is surrounded. These people are used to spending all their time puffing on marijuana cigarettes and reveling in the clouds of smoke while lying on the beach. They have no social responsibilities and their one obligation is to drugs in accordance with their hedonistic approach to life. They are not in the least worried about time or at the pace the outside world is progressing onwards because they are all hopelessly immersed in a superficial way of living promoted by Sal and Bugs. It does not mean that work is not at all important for the people living on the island, but the most important part of their lives is confined to drugs. Richard’s realization of the culture of the legendary beach gets stronger as time passes by. He observes how the entire community functions on a degenerated approach to life and gets increasingly upset. The novel digs with acute intelligence into portrayal of the drug culture in Thailand which can be particularly witnessed in its full glory on deserted beaches occupied by groups of freethinkers who believe enjoyment can be experienced in drug-fuelled beach parties. Marijuana and even casual sex form supreme features of the lives of such people and getting stoned is the ultimate experience of life. An entirely different set of moral codes is found by Richard on the beach as he starts blending in the environment. He realizes that the effects of narcotics are ubiquitous given how their widespread use which is not minded in the least by people living on the idyllic beach. Experimentation with heroin is also common and possession of similar drugs is rife in the paradise discovered by Richard. He observes that the hedonists living there have entirely disconnected themselves from the outer world because they do not want to be judged or seen disparagingly by others who cannot understand their culture. Their infamous and rebellious dispositions make for an interesting travelling experience for Richard as do their unorthodox practices of casual sex and rampant drug use. At first he even seems to enjoy the living experience on the paradise he has discovered thanks to a map and makes several attempts at adjusting in the community by doing what they commonly do. But after increasingly getting familiar with the ways of people around him involving violent fights and overpowering terror stemming from other means, he starts having hallucinations repeatedly and gradually discovers that the paradise he is living in is not a paradise in fact. He acknowledges he was pursuing a shallow fallacy after all and the drug culture which initially fascinated him now starts depressing him even more. Richard regularly sees Daffy in his drug-inspired hallucinations and together they talk at length about their experiences in reference to the beach and the lifestyle of that place (Minca and Oakes 60). Richard comes to appreciate through Daffy the reason behind his suicide which compelled him to slit his wrists and fears the probability of same tragic demise for himself. He realizes that Daffy killed himself because he could no longer endure the painful experience of the catch-22 that was suffocating him increasingly day by day. On one side, he could not identify with the popular rebellious atmosphere of the place and on the other side, he did not think he was left with enough will or energy to return to a normal way of living. He was sure he had destroyed himself beyond recovery having spent much time in a degenerated place surrounded by people with twisted minds. He also realizes that he was actually given the map by Daffy because he wanted the secluded community of the beach to be discovered against its wishes by more people. He wanted the outside people to know the horrors of the fake paradise and realize that the drug-fuelled culture they live by is actually empty mockery. The novel’s representation of a thrill-seeking culture and cannabis tells the readers that the beach-dweller’s lifestyle is actually an illusion (Banco 133). A group of newcomers attempts to make its way through the jungle to the paradise in the same way Richard did, but gets killed by the Thai farmers standing guard on the marijuana fields who do not let anyone cross by to lend privacy to the community inhabiting the beach. It is because of the rampant drug use and violent lifestyle that Richard finally gathers enough courage to flee from the hideous paradise with his friends. To make the escape plan successful, he cooks the stew for the party with marijuana to make the people unusually stoned. But the plan fails and when Richard’s intentions are discovered by everyone, the unstable partygoers high on marijuana savagely beat him. After Richard’s plan to escape is thwarted and he is beaten cruelly in supervision of Sal, he gets very depressed over the fact that if he goes on living in this messed up place, he would be taken down by the effects of marijuana and other drugs and his life could end in the same way Daffy’s did. The same things which in the beginning of his adventure enticed him now scare him beyond possibility and he abhors the living style practiced on the island by unstable people living there. However, Richard manages to escape the paradise that has now become a hell with the help of his friends at the end and reaches Koh Samui again. It is revealed that after leaving Thailand behind, he embraces civilization in his hometown again and attempts to deal with his dark experiences of the past though drugs continue to be part of his life. He discovers that someone he used to know from the notorious island got arrested for smuggling large proportions of heroin and feels relieved that he managed to escape the terrible place or same could have happened to him. He feels satisfied with living a civilized life in a normal world far away from the drug-fueled indulgent culture of the beach he unfortunately discovered in Thailand. This novel written by Garland became a success among backpackers across the globe in particular, but also attracted much criticism and disgust especially from Asian critics. It was argued that the novel presented a wrong image of Thailand to the world suggesting the prevalence of a drug-fuelled culture which promotes unprotected sex and a self-indulgent lifestyle. Owing to a negative image promoted by the novel and the controversy it generated, many Asian critics have described it as “a one-dimensional look at the region by an uniformed outsider” (Gluckman). The theme of drugs consistently influences every chapter of the novel from the start to the end which has played a damaging role for the reputation of the country where drug use is actually strictly discouraged by the law. Works cited: Banco, Lindsey M. Travel and Drugs in Twentieth-Century Literature. Routledge, 2013. Print. Gluckman, Ron. POSTCARDS FROM THE BEACH. gluckman.com, 19 Feb. 1999. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. Minca, Claudio, and Oakes, Tim. Travels in Paradox: Remapping Tourism. Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Print. Read More