Symbolism and Allusion
Under the Volcano is particularly rich in symbolism, and references and allusions to other writers and literary works abound. The influence of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus runs throughout the novel, and references to Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, William Shakespeare's tragedies, and Dante's Divine Comedy enrich the novel's meaning.
Critics have remarked that Marlowe's version of the Faustus myth is "Lowry's single most important source for Under the Volcano. Lowry alludes to Goethe's Faust as well and uses a quote for one of his three epigraphs but Marlowe's dominates, with the Consul being suggested as a Faustian black magician by Hugh. The Consul himself "often associates himself with Faustus as a suffering soul who cannot ask for salvation, or who even runs toward hell", and parodies Marlowe's line about Helen of Troy ("was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, / and burnt the topless towers of Illium?") when looking at a fighting cock in a bar, "Was this the face that launched five hundred ships, and betrayed Christ into being in the Western Hemisphere?"
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Famous quotes containing the word symbolism:
“...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor—they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.”
—Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)