"Whatever I do, it shall be deliberately": The Consul's Political Epiphany in Under the Volcano

The article addresses the politics of Under the Volcano, arguing against the conventional interpretation of the novel's ending that reads the Consul's death as the final desperate act of a man unable or unwilling to live any longer with the personal and emotional losses caused by his own apolitical self-absorption and his related flight into alcoholism.

I contend instead that Lowry employs landscape imagery to develop a theme of political awakening, using the geography of Quauhnahuac, specifically the path to Parián, to represent the polar forces of left and right, thus portraying the stark and unavoidable choices forced on those who would oppose the spread of fascism.

In my reading of the final three chapters of the novel, the Consul very consciously chooses the path to the right, towards El Farolito, in order to confront the representatives of reaction because he understands the true nature of the Fascist threat in Mexico, as ultimately shown by his rejection of the Viva Cristo Rey propaganda blaring from the radio. Before dying, he identifies himself with the land and the Mexican working class, accepting that personal sacrifice, even so seemingly futile a sacrifice as giving one's life in such a remote place, has value. Thus, even though throughout the novel the Consul has consistently rejected leftist ideals of community action and concern for the dispossessed, when he sees these ideals threatened by the unreasoning authoritarianism of the fascists, he realizes that they are the last remaining defense for individual freedom in a world otherwise to be dominated by the violent power of the Right. In the end, the Consul dismisses the peasants' offers to help him escape in order to make a principled political stand, an act that reflects Lowry's own political worldview.