Bergman plays Karin, a displaced Lithuanian people in Italy, who secures release from an internment camp by marrying an Italian ex-POW fisherman, (Mario Vitale), whom she meets in the camp. He promises her a great life in his home island of Stromboli, a volcanic island located between the mainland of Italy and Sicily. She soon discovers that Stromboli is very harsh and barren, not at all what she expected, and the people, very traditional and conservative, show hostility and disdain towards this foreign woman who does not follow their ways.