page_title: Under the Volcano
section_title: Structure and plot
hierarchical_section_title: Under the Volcano / Structure and plot
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Popocatépetl — from near the summit of Iztaccíhuatl. Part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt — a principal volcanic mountain system in central México.
context_page_description: Under the Volcano is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead, 1 November 1938. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. Under the Volcano was Lowry's second and last complete novel.
  The novel was adapted for radio on Studio One in 1947 but had gone out of print by the time Lowry died. Its popularity restored, in 1984 it served as the basis of a film of the same name. In 1998 the Modern Library ranked Under the Volcano at number 11 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
  It was included in Modern Library's 100 Best English-Language Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, Time's All-Time 100 Novels, and Anthony Burgess' Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939.
context_section_description: The book consists of twelve chapters, the first of which introduces the narrative proper and which is set exactly a year after the events. The following eleven chapters happen in a single day and follow the Consul chronologically, starting early on the morning of the Day of the Dead with the return of his wife, Yvonne, who left him the year before, to his violent death at the end of the day. In contrast with the omniscient narrative mode of the 1940 version, the published novel "focus[es] each chapter through the mind of one central figure, no two sequential chapters employing the same character's consciousness".
  The number of chapters was important numerologically, as Lowry explained in a letter to Johnathan Cape: there are twelve hours in a day (and most of the novel happens in a single day), twelve months in a year (one year elapses between chapter 1 and the end of chapter 12). Besides, the number 12 is of symbolic importance in the Kabbalah which, according to Lowry, represents "man's spiritual aspirations". Finally, "I have to have my 12", Lowry says, since he hears in it "a clock slowly striking midnight for Faust".
caption: Popocatépetl, from the summit of Iztaccihuatl
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