The beach remained, indifferent to the people who walked upon it, waiting for the next tide to rearrange the shore once again. Key Themes of the Setting
"It never does," Claire said, looking out at the grey, forbidding sea. "It just rearranges itself." On Chesil Beach
"Talking didn't save us," Arthur said quietly. "We just used words to build a different kind of wall." The beach remained, indifferent to the people who
Claire stopped and picked up a piece of pink-tinged quartz. "Do you remember what you told me here? You said that if we stayed, we’d become like the stones—smoothed down until we were all exactly the same." "We just used words to build a different kind of wall
"I'm glad we didn't stay," she said, turning back toward the car park. "But I'm glad we came back to check."
"We weren't like them, were we?" Claire asked suddenly. "The couple from the book? We had the words. We had the 'sexual liberation.' We talked until our throats were dry."
He wasn’t Edward, and the woman he was waiting for wasn't Florence. But they were ghosts of a similar kind.