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On the Beach Summary & Study Guide Description
On the Beach Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains For Further Study and a Free Quiz on On the Beach by Nevil Shute.
On the Beach Plot Summary
Preview of On the Beach Summary:
Chapter 1
On the Beach opens with Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy preparing for a new naval assignment. One year earlier, there had been a devastating nuclear conflict in North America, Europe, and Asia. As a result, billions of people have died from nuclear radiation, which will eventually reach Australia.
However, Peter is happy to be getting a new assignment. After he fetches milk for his wife, Mary, and his infant daughter, Jennifer, he travels to Melbourne to learn the nature of his new appointment.
In Melbourne, Peter is appointed as the liaison officer to the U.S. submarine, the U.S.S. Scorpion. He has met the captain, Commander Dwight Towers, and remembers him as a "... quiet, soft-spoken man of thirty-five or so with a slight New England accent."
When the war had erupted a year earlier, the Scorpion was cruising near Australia. When Towers was...
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This section contains 1,658 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
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