The novel consists of three parts. The first part called “Embarkation” revolves around the passengers getting aboard, and the ship leaving the port in Mexico. Characters get slowly introduced, all of them eager to leave whatever life they had there behind.
An eccentric young American couple, Jenny and David are stuck in a passionate love-hate relationship, and they can’t agree where to go, always prepared to contradict each other. The middle-aged German couple, Professor Hutten and Frau Hutten portray an “idyllic” family life, where the wife completely agrees in everything with her husband without expressing her own opinion while doing most of his work behind the scenes.
Frau Rittersdof dreams of white supremacy and is filled with hatred for the weak and troubled, keeping a diary of her thoughts. Frau Schmitt is a meek German wife, recently widowed, who is still coping with the loss of her husband, and easily influences by her German peers on the ship. Fräulein Lizzi Spockenkieker is stuck in her own idea of herself, thinking that any man she meets wants her.
There is also the Baumgartner family, with the father being a hopeless drunk, and mother a force suffocating her depressed son Hans without a care for his wishes and needs. Willibald Graf is a religious dying man who refuses to give any cent to his nephew Johann, whose growing contempt for his uncle even leads him to plotting his death. Wilhelm Freytag is a German who married a Jew girl, and spends his entire journey in self-pity and confliction between his ideas of white supremacy and the love for his poor wife. He just wants to get away somewhere where they won’t be judged, and where Mary’s mother won’t remind him of the sacrifice they made by going against their Jew family.
Julius Lowenthal is a Jew salesman who wishes to engage in conversation with someone, without the topic of religion being the focus. He also judges Freytag on taking a girl from a respected Jewish family to be with him, a “Goy”. There is also a Swiss family: Frau Lutz limiting her young adult daughter Elsa, wanting to control every aspect of her life for the sake of her purity. Elsa leads a miserable life, her mother forbids her to try and make herself attractive to boys, embedding guilt into her so that she purposefully misses the opportunity to dance with the love of her life on the ship.
There is also La Condesa, a Cuban noblewoman whose stay at the ship is intertwined with the ship’s doctor, Dr. Schumann. Dr. Schumann falls hopelessly in love with La Condesa, even giving her the forbidden medicine for relaxation, but he never gathers the courage to go beyond his profession with her. The Ship’s Captain is a depressed individual dreaming of a better life and better authority, a sympathizer of the National Socialism, has contempt for every individual on the ship. The mischievous twins, Ric and Rac, are always looking for trouble, going as far as causing the death of one of the poor Spanish passengers, and relishing in it. They represent the complete childish deviousness devoid of compassion.
The Second part “High Sea” revolves around the characters getting to know each other, communicating and living with each other, showing their true faces and expressing their moral and political opinions. “The Harbors” is the last part of the novel. Characters reconcile with themselves, accept their truths and go on with their respective paths, putting the journey behind them, making it fall into forgetfulness.
The ship is a representation of a small universe in itself, where various kinds of different people are present, different in their race, wealth and social status. It is the world condensed into a small area, where the tensions, relating to the rising National Socialism, are present and a hatred-fueled divide is clear.
