Plot: Outline of the most important events; put in the chronological sequence. Jean was born in Malaya 1921, but her parents were English. She went back to England to go to school. When she was nineteen years old, she went back to Malaya to work as a shorthand typist and live in Kuala Lumpur. In 1941, the Second World War began. The Japanese invaded Malaya. Because of the risk to be taken as prisoners, the English people in Kuala Lumpur took refuge. Jean did not do that, but went to her friends: the family Holland, to help them to make the journey south. They tried to escape first by car and later by boat, but it did not work out: they were too late, and the Japanese made them prisoners, together with about sixty other peoples. They had to stay under the veranda of the accounts office. The men had to go to a prison camp, so only women and children were left in the accounts office. The circumstances were very bad; the food was not good and they had to sleep on the ground without any blanket. Therefore, diseases like dysentery and malaria attacked them. After thirty-five days the first child died. At the end of six weeks the captain of the Japanese told the women and children that they had to go to Singapore to go to an prison-camp, because in the meanwhile the Japanese had captured that town also. They should walk to Kuala Lumpur; from there they should be able to go by train to Singapore.   They started to walk. First they walked to Ayer Penchis; it was a long and hot journey. The next day they walked to Asahan. Everyone became weaker and weaker. An old lady, Mrs Collard died there. Jean was the only one who could talk Malay and she got it done that the women and children could stay a day. They rested and bullied Mrs Collard. They heard from the Japanese that they could not get a train in Kuala Lumpur. So they were forced to walk further to Klang in order to take a boat. In Klang, they heard that there were no ships. There where twenty-nine women and children left. They stay eleven days in Klang. The major ordered them to walk to Port Dickson; there might be a boat. There they did not find a boat. The commander said that they had to walk to Serembar and get a train there. When they arrived, they discovered that there was no train. They walked on in the direction of Singapore. On the way a captain sad, that they could not go to Singapore because there were too many prisoners. On the way to Kuantan four children died. One of them was Freddy Holland. After a few days, Mrs Holland died to. Jean took care of her baby, Robin Holland. In Kuantan, they found two lorries, which were broken. Jane spoke with one of the drivers. She told him that they had walked for about 500 miles and that 15 of them died. The man, named Joe bought some medicines for them Joe and Jean talked with each other. The man was homesick. Joe told Jane about the great place he lives: A great little town, in Australia, named Alice Springs. He was a ringer there. The following day Joe bought them soap and a pig, all of petrol of the lorries, which he had sold. The two talked to each other again. Joe promised to bring some chickens. They got five black chickens. The same day a Japanese officer missed five chickens. They saw the women and the chickens and so they questioned Jane. She told them a lie but the Japanese did not believe her. Joe came and told the truth. The captain decided that he had to die. They beat him until they thought that Joe was dead. The women had to go on and walked to Kua Telang. In this village their only guard died. Jean asked the headman of the village: Mat Amin, if they could stay and work in the rice- fields, where nobody works, because the men where fighting in the army. The headman agreed. They lived there tree years. After the war, Jean went back to England. She worked in London in an office of shoemakers.   She worked there as a typist. She had been working there for three years. In 1948 the solicitor (Mr Strachan) of her uncle: Douglas McFadden, told her that her uncle had left her 63.000 pounds. There was a condition: she could get the money after her 35th birthday. Because she wants to do something back to the inhabitants of Kuala Telang. She went in June 1949 back to Malay to build a well and a washing-place for the people in Kuala Telang. She should pay it of the interest of \'her\' fortune. So the women would not any longer have to walk a long way to get water. When she arrived, everyone was nice to her. The people in the village agreed with her plans to dig a well and build a washing-place. After three weeks, the well diggers began. Jean talked about the war with the well diggers. She found out the Joe had not died, but had survived the tortures. When the well and the washing-house were finished, she decided to search Joe. First, she went to Kuatan. There she heard that Joe had gone back to Australia. She went there too. First, she went to the village Alice Springs: the place where Joe had lived before the war. She liked the place and was disappointed that Joe didn\'t live there. She found out that Joe was a manager of a ranch near Willstown. When she came in Willstown, he was not there: He was gone to England to search her and would be back in two months. Willstown was a very little place: There weren\'t any facilities. She didn\'t think she would like it to live there. Nevertheless, she decided to wait for Joe till he would come back. In the meantime, she met most of the villagers. Most of them where men: for a women was Willstown was not a nice place to live, they couldn\'t work here and there was no entertainment. Among them was an alligator-hunter. He gave her an alligator-skin. Jean made of a skin a few pare of shoes; she knew how to do it, because she worked at a shoe firm. This brought her to an idea: She would make Willstown a better place to live and keep the girls in the town. She made plans to open a shoe-make workshop for your girls and a milk bar. After these two months, Jean met Joe. First they didn\'t know how to behave to each other, but after a weekend in Green Island, they felt in love. They decided that Jean would live in Willstown for a year, and she would start the workshop and the milk bar. After that year, they would marry. Jean worked very hard. She managed to teach the girls how to make shoes and many people visited the milk bar. Joe and Jean married. When Alice discovered that her business worked out very well and that she was happy, she asked her solicitor to give her all the money, although she wasn\'t thirty-five years old. The solicitor agreed. With a part of the money, they bought the ranch of which Joe Harman was the manager. In the town, she built a swimming pool, a beauty farm, a cinema, and a shop with fresh fruit, vegetables and milk. Jean got three children. The town had grown, because a lot of girls were working in the shoe-factory, and a lot of grown up women stayed in the town and married a ringer. People are able to live in the town in great happiness: Willstown has become a town like Alice. The construction of these events, in which they are presented, is the following: The solicitor of Jean tells the story. The story begins when the solicitor tells Jean that her uncle has left her a lot of money. Because Mr Stachman, the solicitor, has a lot to inform Jean about, they talk a lot. During one of the conversations, Jean tells him about what has happened to her in the war. So then is that part of her story told. After that part Jean goes back to Malaya, then to Australia. She writes the narrator (Mr Stachman) a letter every week, so he knows what Jean has been doing. The end is presented like is told in the plot. Description Time The story is situated in the period of the Second World War, and the first eight years after this war: 1941 till 1953. About the first three years after the war is not told much about. There is only told where the main figure lived and worked. These three years are `a gap in the time`. You can see the complete book as a flashback; an old man who has nothing to do, writes down an extraordinary life-story about a formal client of his. So the book is written in the past tence. The sequence in which the things really have happened is not the same as they are told in the book. The difference is explained after the plot. Place

The story is situated in England, Malaya and Australia. In a great deal of the book the main figure is travelling, so she passes many places. The towns where she really lived are Kuala Lumpur (Malaya), Kuala Telang (Malaya), London (England) and Willstown (Australia). Before the war, Kuala Lumpur is the `home\' of the main figure. Kuala Telang is not like a home for her, because she had to stay there and live in conditions she was not used to. After the war, Malaya is not a home for her anymore, because the couture remembers her on the terrible things she had been through. England has become her home, but the main figure has always the feeling that she belongs to another place. The symbol of how this place should be is the little town in Australia: Alice Spring. She heard of that town in the war. At the end of the book she lives in Willstown. This place is in the beginning not a great place to live, but she made Willstown a great town and she made her illusion come through.

Characters

The main character of the book is Jean Parket. (When she was married her name is Jean Harman) She is in the beginning of the story nineteen years old, and in the end is she thirty-one years old. This woman is of medium height and dark haired. Her father named Arthur Parket died when she was thirteen years old. Her mother, Jean Parket, and her brother, Donald Parked, died in the war. So after the war she was an orphan. She hasn\'t studied very much, but she is very clever; she knows how to proceed in bad circumstances, and she stays calm in fatal situations. (She stays for example always calm when she speaks to the `cruel Japs`)    Because of that, and because she spoke Malay she was in the war the leader of the women who were taken as prisoners. She is a strong young woman, in a mental, and physic way. Mental, because she does what she can to help suffering people, instead of panicking. Physic, because in the war she stayed free of all the diseases. She is also inventive, in Australia she has very clever ideas to create a `home` and help the people. In the beginning of the book (the part of the war) she is presented as a \'cool\' person. The story of the war is objective told: her feelings about what is happening are not given to the reader. About the part after the war is given more feelings. In her letters she tells Mr Stachman what she think. She has a positive influence of the women, during their captivity: she gives them hope, and gets them extra food. One of the most important secondary characters is Joe Harman He is about twenty-five year when he meets Jean for the first time. He is fair-haired, about five feet ten in height and thickset but not fat. He is a ringer: he manages a ranch of cattle and is really an outdoor-man. His county of origin is Australia, and he lives there too. Before the war he lives in a ranch near Alice Springs, during the war he is a lorry driver in Malaya and after the war he lives in a ranch near Willstown. He is not afraid the Japanese: He stole even chickens of them to help Jean and the other prisoners. He must be very strong, because he survived all tortures of the Japanese. Nevertheless, he is not senseless at al: he is homesick during the war and does not ask Jean to stay with him if she doesn\'t want to stay in a dull place: he considers her. Another important secondary character is Mr Stachman He is a solicitor. Mr Stachman lives in London. He is a pretty old man (his age is not told) He\'s the narrator of the story. This man thinks that Jean is a very clever and pleasant girl. The other secondary characters are: Eileen Holland: a friend of Jean, with which Jean was a lot during the captivity. She was a woman, which is not very independent: Very often, Jean must tell her what to do. Bill Holland: the man of Mrs Holland. The children of them: Freddy (seven years old), Jane (four years old) and Robin (a baby) Literary context: The book is written in 1950, The book plays partial in the war. So a part of the subject of the book is war. This book is one of the about-ten-years-after-war books. In the first years after the war people wanted to forget about the war. After about ten years the public opinion about this was changed: most of the people wanted to prevent a new war. Especially writers wanted to do this trough publishing material as much as possible: They often wrote down most cruel details. Biography of the writer: Nevil Shute, in connection with my book. Nevil Shute was born in Earling, in England. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and then at the Royal Military. After serving in the First World War, he studied for his B.A. degree at Oxford, before starting an aeronautical carrier with Haviland Aircraft co. Later he developed his own aircraft engineering enterprise, before joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Service during Wold War II. He wrote in the evenings but failed to find publishers for his first two novels. The third \'Marazan\' (1928). This was the beginning of thirty years writing that established him a one of the world\'s most widely read novelists. It was not until 1945, that he finally became a full-time writer. In 1951 he immigrated to Australia. He lived there till his dead (1960) Here did he write a lot of popular and prompt written books, which are playing there. A town like Alice is one of them. A town like Alice is probably his biggest writing success. Shute\'s love of Australia permeates this Novel. Moreover, the cruel things he has been through in the both World Wars have a lot of influence in this book: He describes a lot of cruel things, which probably really can have happened in the war. The characters do not really exist, but the things are reflection of the reality. Bibliography of this writer: Nevil Shute has written quit a lot of books. These are his most famous works:   So disdained (1928)   What happened to the Corbetts?  (1939)   Pied piper (1942)   Pastoral (1944)   A town like Alice (1950) In the wet (1953) On the beach (1957) The rainbow and the rose (1958) Interpretation Central theme and title: In the book, there is not really discussed a problem, but the writer wants to show what kind of cruel things are happened in the war. Beside this he wants to describe a love-story. The title can be explained: Alice is a town, which is very beautiful. The main figure heard from Joe about Alice in the war, when she lived in very bad circumstances: Alice was a kind of place Jean really wanted to live: There was no war, enough water, nice shops, beautiful nature and so on. It was an illusion, a symbol.  When Jean went to Australia and came in Willstown, this place was not satisfactory. With her fortune and clever ideas she made Willstown a great place: A town like Alice. The book has no sub-title. The story is parted in eight chapters. These chapters don\'t have titles, but are numbered. Characters: It is obvious that both the writer as the reader will see Jean as a kind of hero in the book: she is the one which stays calm and helps the people., She is brave and dares to travel trough whole Malaya and Australia, while she is just a girl. Jean is also the one, which has great ideas about improving a town. This gives her a lot of sympathy. The writer reinforces this sympathy, because he lets the narrator (Mr Stachman) be very positive about Jean: He did never doubt about the good meanings of Jean. Quotation, which I wrote down to give an example about what he says about her: \'I was seventy-three years old this autumn, old enough to be her grandfather, I couldn\'t possibly be in love with her myself\' (page 240) Place: The place is not in connection with the main theme, (according to me this main theme is: the way of living during and after the war) but with an important sub-theme of the book. This sub-theme is: finding a great home, ands living in a great place. During nearly the entire book, the main figure didn\'t find a great home: In Malaya, she continually had to walk from place to place, the place in which she finally could stay, was not really a great place for a white women. After the war she went back to England, there she didn\'t think she had found her destination. She made Willstown a great place: She found a home. Form: The narrator of the book is Mr Stachman. Though Mr Stachman is the narrator of the book and not Jean herself, the writer gives an objective description. A great part of the book is about the war, and I think that he didn\'t want to describe this war full of emotions: It had to be credible. Personal judgement: I have been reading this book with the idea that the things, which happened in the war, really have happened, because everything was very detailed and objective described. After reading the book I read in the autor`s note that nothing of this have happened in Malaya, but that something comparable happened in Sumatra. This disappointed me: I think it is better to write a story that really have happened or a story, which is obvious fiction. I think that, when the events not really have happened, the writer could have made the events a little bit more attractive: when the story not really have happened, it doesn\'t need to be objective. He can take away this objectivity, through not letting Mr Stachman tell the story, but Jean herself. She is the one who has gone through the things. So she could give her feelings. I think it wasn\'t wise to tell the story in the past tense, because that reduces the possibility to empathise with the characters. This story really got everything: cruelty, real life, travelling, love and happiness. This variety is a good point of the book. Through this, many people like to read the book: you are nearly sure that it got something, which interest you.     The use of language of the book was not difficult at all. Of course, there were words, which I didn\'t know, but I think that I have understood the purport of the book. The happy end of the book was satisfying for me: I thought it was nice to read that the main figure, which I liked very much, was lived in happiness and peace in the end of the book.