What Does Richard’s Decisions Leave the Map Suggest About His Character and Human Nature?

1. What sort of place do you imagine as a paradise? What is it like?

Paradise is a place on an island with beautiful clear water with everything that you wish, good weather and no stress. Safety and happy good people around, good food and nothing negative.

1. What do you think could turn a paradise into hell? What could go wrong?

By all the above things turning into the opposites and being negative.

1. Traveller: Tries to immerse themselves in the local culture and explore unseen areas. The goal of the trip is to learn and experience new things.

Tourist: May carry a camera, guidebook, and a map all the time and wear the same clothes that they were at home and stay in major areas, not venture out. The goal is to have a holiday and relax.

What is the novel protesting?

• Drug abuse
• Paradise vs realty
• Utopia
• Corruption of police
• Rejecting rules and regulation of society (make their own rules)
• Familiar attachments
• Against tourism
• Destruction of natural environment from tourism
• The west invading the east
• Against routine for adventure
• Rejecting a consumers society

How does it protest? That is, what narrative conventions are employed by the author to help communicate the protests of the novel?

• Characterisation – Daffy had protest that he needed Richards full attention and readers full attention
• He didn’t want to give map to police as he didn’t want to be part of the police interview
• Symbolism- way daffy drew map really well, shows he knows the island so well and shows how beautiful the place was as he drew it so well.
• Richard performs what he has seen in text in real life, he gets bored as he likes the challenge to perform, he is protagonist but also the villain in the text
• Richard sets up the conflict with his mental issues.
• Cancer in the corals
• Daffy lived for the beach but ended his own life gives us sense of doom early.
• Étienne and Françoise don’t seem too affected by Duffy’s death as they are travellers and has seen a lot.
• Étienne and Françoise do prank, shark joke

What does Richard’s decisions leave the map suggest about his character and human nature?

Background and themes:

The search for adventure:

 In recent years, increasing affluence and a taste for travel have encouraged many young people of all nationalities to take time off between school and university, or university and fulltime employment, to explore the world. Many end up in Thailand, a country famous for its beautiful unspoilt beaches and exotic lifestyle, where living is relatively cheap. Travellers and backpackers can meet there, share experiences and discover a world quite different from that in which they have been brought up. Free from the restraints of home, young people find it an exciting place to try new experiences and enjoy themselves to the full. Like Richard, Étienne and Françoise, they are in search of adventure and for some, typical tourist activities such as river-rafting and trekking no longer offer enough excitement to satisfy them. Furthermore, the popularity of Thailand as a holiday destination has meant that the beaches have become crowded and the resorts touristy. The community of the beach are trying to find a paradise that has not been spoilt by commercialization.