Ferris Wheels, Faust, and Forms of Influence in Malcolm Lowry and Graham Greene

Abstract Ferris Wheels seem to fascinate film-directors – notably Carol Reed in The Third Man (1949), based on Graham Greene’s story and script. Though Ferris Wheels figure less conspicuously in twentieth-century novels, Malcolm Lowry provides an exception in Under the Volcano (1947), a novel also comparable to The Third Man in other ways. One explanation might be that Greene simply drew on Lowry’s example when developing his film-script (later published as a novella) – work begun very shortly after Under the Volcano had appeared. More plausibly, each writer might be understood to have responded separately, though similarly, to the unique pressures of their age. Identifying how these stresses were represented in their work, through cognate symbologies, may suggest some productive ways of reading historically.