The Beach

Richard is the protagonist and narrator of The Beach. He is a 20-something English man who travels the world cataloging experiences: “I went about it in the same way as a stamp collector goes about collecting stamps, carrying around with me a mental list of all the things I had yet to see or do” (162). This is a classically Imperialist attitude, seeing environments as a token to collect. When Richard meets Daffy and hears of a mysterious secluded beach, he knows it will be an experience like no other. He invites Etienne and Françoise along, despite having just met them, and from the first page proclaims to “walk through the valley of death [but] […] fear no evil” (1), setting the premise for his lust for danger and adventure. Richard was also born during the Vietnam War and is highly influenced by this historical event. He loves video games, war games, and combining the two to create fantasies in the waking world. While Richard never experienced war and has only partaken vicariously through simulations, he recreates it in microcosm at