Ultramarine (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Malcolm Lowry
- First Published: 1933
- Type of Work: Comic social realism
- Time of Work: The late 1920’s
- Setting: Tsjang-Tsjang harbor, China, and Merseyside, England
- Principal Characters: Eugene Dana Hilliot, Andy, Norman, Janet
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Self-discovery, Voyages, Class conflict, Sex or sexuality, 1920’s, England or English people, Ships, Hell, China or Chinese people, Time, Syphilis, Tattoos, Celibacy
- Locales: England, China, Merseyside, England
The Novel
Like that of Under the Volcano (1947), the story of Ultramarine is deceptively easy to summarize. On one level, it tells the story of forty-eight hours on board the tramp steamer Oedipus Tyrannus, “outward bound for hell”: forty-eight hours of unloading, loading, drinking, whoring, gossiping, and drudgery. On another level, in a series of internal monologues, it charts a sensitive young man’s confrontation with the human problems of sexuality, class conflict, and vocation, and the more philosophical problems of the nature of time and the...
[The entire page is 2141 words long]
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