Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this.

Dwight Towers says these words to John Osborne as they are returning from their first cruise along the Australian coast in Chapter Three. Just before Dwight speaks, he has been thinking of the flowering trees he had seen through the periscope—trees that no other living human will ever see again. His words are the first in On the Beach to indicate the entire human race has a collective responsibility for the tragedy that has befallen the entire planet. Throughout the novel, the characters are primarily concerned with the mundanities and banalities of life, hoping to go about their routines and experience simple pleasures before dying as tidily as possible. This quotation, however, places a collective responsibility for the tragedy that has befallen the entire planet. Dwight includes himself and he says everyone has had a hand in what has occurred. Later, Peter Holmes echoes this sentiment when he tells Mary that responsible journalism to educate people about the danger of nuclear war might have prevented it. Passages such as these suffuse the novel with a sense of sorrowful resignation, sadness at the tragedy that has befallen the human race but also a sense of regret that humans have had their chance and thrown it away.

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