On the Beach
Encyclopedia
On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic
, end-of-the-world novel written by British-Australian author Nevil Shute
after he emigrated to Australia
. It was published in 1957.
The novel was adapted for the screenplay of a 1959 film
featuring Gregory Peck
, Ava Gardner
, and Fred Astaire
, and a 2000 television film
starring Bryan Brown
, Armand Assante
and Rachel Ward
. BBC Radio 4
broadcast a full cast audio dramatisation in two hour-long episodes as part of their Classic Serial
strand in November 2008.
The book takes its name from the T. S. Eliot
poem The Hollow Men
, which includes the line "Gathered on this beach of the tumid river." Some editions of the novel, including the 1990 publication by Mandarin Paperbacks, include extracts from the poem, such as its concluding lines:
has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout
and killing all human and animal life in the northern hemisphere
. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania
on Italy
, and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom
by Egypt
. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the USSR, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the USSR by NATO. There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China
, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most if not all of the bombs had cobalt
that was included to enhance their radioactive properties.
Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone
to the southern hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia and New Zealand
, South Africa
, and the southern parts of South America
, although these areas are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning
as well. Life in Melbourne continues in a reasonably normal fashion, though the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes travel difficult.
People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code
radio signal originating from Seattle, Washington
, in the United States
. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion, placed by its captain Dwight Towers under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whomever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland
and Darwin, Northern Territory
, but finds no survivors. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines their growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy.
The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so that they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city it is referred to as being "out." One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring a Ferrari
racing car which he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the outbreak of the war.
The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska
in the northern Pacific Ocean
, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the "Jorgensen Effect," a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will gradually decrease due to weather effects and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica. The submarine approaches San Francisco, California
, observing through the periscope
that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge
has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound
area, from which the strange radio signals come, is found to have avoided destruction due to missile defenses. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington
, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town. The expedition members then sail to an abandoned Navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that, although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor
, (most of) the submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left.
The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results (to no one's real distress) in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a "gentlemen's club" drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally-destructive rabbits will survive human beings. Towers goes on a fishing trip with Davidson but they do not become sexually involved, as he wants to remain loyal to his wife, a decision Moira accepts. Government services and the economy gradually grind to a halt. In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside Australian territorial waters. He refuses to allow his imminent demise to turn him aside from his duty to the U.S. Navy and he acts as a pillar of strength to his crew.
Moira watches the departure of the submarine from an adjacent hilltop as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car.
Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live; most of them opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation sickness appear.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
, end-of-the-world novel written by British-Australian author Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute Norway was a popular British-Australian novelist and a successful aeronautical engineer. He used his full name in his engineering career, and 'Nevil Shute' as his pen name, in order to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels.-...
after he emigrated to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It was published in 1957.
The novel was adapted for the screenplay of a 1959 film
On the Beach (1959 film)
On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic drama film based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel of the same name. The film features Gregory Peck , Ava Gardner , Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins...
featuring Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
, Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
, and Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, and a 2000 television film
On the Beach (2000 film)
On the Beach is an apocalyptic television movie released in 2000, airing originally on Showtime. It is a remake of the 1959 film, and is based on the 1957 novel by Nevil Shute. It starred Armand Assante, Bryan Brown, and Rachel Ward...
starring Bryan Brown
Bryan Brown
Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...
, Armand Assante
Armand Assante
-Personal life:Assante was born in New York City and raised in Cornwall, New York, the son of Katherine , a music teacher and poet, and Armand Anthony Assante, Sr., a painter and artist. His father was Italian and his mother was Irish, and was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic family...
and Rachel Ward
Rachel Ward
Rachel Claire Ward, AM is a British actress, columnist, film director, and screenwriter who has primarily pursued her career in Australia.-Early life:...
. BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
broadcast a full cast audio dramatisation in two hour-long episodes as part of their Classic Serial
Classic Serial
The Classic Serial is a strand on BBC Radio 4 in which classics of English literature are adapted into series of one-hour dramas. It is broadcast twice weekly on BBC Radio 4, first from 3:00-4:00pm on Sunday, then repeated on 9:00-10:00pm the next Saturday....
strand in November 2008.
The book takes its name from the T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
poem The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men is a major poem by T. S. Eliot. Its themes are, like many of Eliot's poems, overlapping and fragmentary, but it is recognised to be concerned most with post-World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles , the difficulty of hope and religious conversion, and, as some critics...
, which includes the line "Gathered on this beach of the tumid river." Some editions of the novel, including the 1990 publication by Mandarin Paperbacks, include extracts from the poem, such as its concluding lines:
- This is the way the world ends
- Not with a bang but a whimper.
Plot summary
The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War IIIWorld War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
and killing all human and animal life in the northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
on Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the USSR, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the USSR by NATO. There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most if not all of the bombs had cobalt
Cobalt bomb
A cobalt bomb is a theoretical type of "salted bomb": a nuclear weapon intended to contaminate an area by radioactive material, with a relatively small blast....
that was included to enhance their radioactive properties.
Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone
Intertropical Convergence Zone
The Intertropical Convergence Zone , known by sailors as The Doldrums, is the area encircling the earth near the equator where winds originating in the northern and southern hemispheres come together....
to the southern hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, and the southern parts of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, although these areas are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning
Radiation poisoning
Acute radiation syndrome also known as radiation poisoning, radiation sickness or radiation toxicity, is a constellation of health effects which occur within several months of exposure to high amounts of ionizing radiation...
as well. Life in Melbourne continues in a reasonably normal fashion, though the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes travel difficult.
People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
radio signal originating from Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion, placed by its captain Dwight Towers under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whomever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland
Cairns, Queensland
Cairns is a regional city in Far North Queensland, Australia, founded 1876. The city was named after William Wellington Cairns, then-current Governor of Queensland. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but experienced a decline when an easier route was...
and Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, but finds no survivors. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines their growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy.
The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so that they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city it is referred to as being "out." One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring a Ferrari
Ferrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
racing car which he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the outbreak of the war.
The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska
Gulf of Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found.The entire shoreline of the Gulf is...
in the northern Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the "Jorgensen Effect," a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will gradually decrease due to weather effects and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica. The submarine approaches San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, observing through the periscope
Periscope
A periscope is an instrument for observation from a concealed position. In its simplest form it consists of a tube with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle....
that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
area, from which the strange radio signals come, is found to have avoided destruction due to missile defenses. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Edmonds has a view of Puget Sound and both the Olympic Mountains and Cascade Range. The third most populous city in Snohomish County after Everett and Marysville, the population was 39,709 according to the 2010 census...
, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town. The expedition members then sail to an abandoned Navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that, although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, (most of) the submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left.
The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results (to no one's real distress) in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a "gentlemen's club" drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally-destructive rabbits will survive human beings. Towers goes on a fishing trip with Davidson but they do not become sexually involved, as he wants to remain loyal to his wife, a decision Moira accepts. Government services and the economy gradually grind to a halt. In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside Australian territorial waters. He refuses to allow his imminent demise to turn him aside from his duty to the U.S. Navy and he acts as a pillar of strength to his crew.
Moira watches the departure of the submarine from an adjacent hilltop as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car.
Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live; most of them opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation sickness appear.