“The United Fruit Company”

Suvir C., Tarika S., Jessica H., and Gleb S.

Neruda and “The United Fruit Company”❖ 1950: Neruda was in exile for supporting the

Communist Party

❖ Canto General

❖ Political Commentary on the United Fruit Company

❖ Critiques capitalism and unfair division of wealth

❖ emphasizes the plight of the working class

Central America

❖ Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica: economies were based on exporting sugar, coffee, and bananas

❖ Banana republic: a politically unstable country whose economy is largely dependent on exporting a limited-resource product

❖ Exploited by US corporations

What was The United Fruit Company?

Trade between American corporation and Central American dictators and upper class

Boston-based company - purchased fruit from Central American countries for cheap prices

Manipulated Western Hemisphere fruit industry

Workers paid extremely low wages and forced to endure terrible working conditions

Neruda critiques US exploitation of poorer countries

US Involvement/Corporations

❖ Coca Cola

➢ Used, and still uses South America for manufacturing

➢ Accused of murdering workers who have tried to unionize

❖ Anaconda

➢ Mining conglomerate that supplied few rights to Chilean miners

➢ Supplied money to fund Pinochet’s coup in 1971, overthrowing Allende

■ Government had claimed their mines, but control was restored under Pinochet

US Involvement/Corporations

❖ United Fruit Company

➢ Grew tropical fruit in banana republics

➢ Sold and traded this fruit in U.S. and Europe

❖ These companies embody capitalism and the American dream.

➢ Influenced more than just trading of resources, also Latin American government

The Banana Massacre

❖ December 6th, 1928

❖ Colombian workers on banana plantations went on strike

❖ Demanded better working conditions

❖ US gov’t threatened to invade with the Marine Corps if Colombia didn’t protect United Fruit Company’s interests

❖ President Miguel Méndez sent the Colombian Army to end the strike with a massacre

➢ 47-2000 dead

Dominant Effect:

Through his use of allusions, Neruda depicts the United Fruit Company in a negative light and critiques U.S. neocolonialism in Central

America.

Color Coding

Allusions

Metaphor

Tone

Imagery

When the trumpet sounded, it was

all prepared on the earth,

the Jehovah parcelled out the earth

to Coca Cola, Inc., Anaconda,

Ford Motors, and other entities:

The Fruit Company, Inc.

reserved for itself the most succulent,

the central coast of my own land,

the delicate waist of America.

Tone: SarcasticIrony of a grandiose welcome

for US corporations

Sensory imagery: TrumpetConnotes grandeurIronic

Religious allusion: Jehovah“Jehovah” is one pronunciation

for the Jewish GodMock religiosity: Companies

believed they had a divine right to Central American resources

Allusions Tone Imagery Metaphor

When the trumpet sounded, it was

all prepared on the earth,

the Jehovah parcelled out the earth

to Coca Cola, Inc., Anaconda,

Ford Motors, and other entities:

The Fruit Company, Inc.

reserved for itself the most succulent,

the central coast of my own land,

the delicate waist of America.

Allusions to US companiesU.S. companies that exploited

Central American resourcesCreated poor working

conditions and contaminated the environment

Metaphor: Central coast as the delicate waist of America

Gives Central America feminine qualities

Criticizes the “rape” of the land

Allusions Tone Imagery Metaphor

It rechristened its territories

as the ’Banana Republics’

and over the sleeping dead,

over the restless heroes

who brought about the greatness, the

liberty and the flags,

it established the comic opera:

abolished the independencies,

AllusionsToneImageryMetaphor

Transition from sarcastic tone to upset tone

Capturing Western/corporate views with diction, “rechristened”

Irony: believe themselves to be doing a service

Alludes to real heroes of the South

Simon Bolivar, Pancho Villa

Real contributors to freedom - longest line of poem

Transition from sarcastic tone to upset tone

Alludes to Caesar, dictator that abolished the Republic of Rome.

Left power vacuum in South and Central America

Attracted dictators

Likens these individuals to flies

Some of these dictators were in fact puppet leaders, put in power by U.S.

presented crowns of Caesar,

unsheathed envy, attracted

the dictatorship of the flies,

Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,

Carias flies, Martinez flies,

Ubico flies, damp flies

of modest blood and marmalade,

drunken flies who zoom

over the ordinary graves,

circus flies, wise flies

well trained in tyranny.

preserve made from citrus fruit

AllusionsToneImageryMetaphor

Among the blood-thirsty flies

the Fruit Company lands its ships,

taking off the coffee and the fruit;

the treasure of our submerged

territories flow as though

on plates into the ships.

AllusionsToneImageryMetaphor

Tone/Metaphor: Neruda characterizes UFC as just another fly,

likens it to the puppet dictators he despises

draining life from Central and South America

Metaphor/Imagery: Neruda illustrates the robbing of Central and South America by the UFC.

Meanwhile (1).Indians are falling

into the sugared chasms

of the harbours, wrapped

for burials in the mist of the dawn:

(2.) a body rolls, (3.) a thing

that has no name, a fallen cipher,

a (4.) luster of the dead fruit

thrown down on the dump.

THE SUFFERING:

(1). Tone: Shift in tone - transition from sarcastic to melancholic - emphasize the reality of the situation and the plight of the people.

(2). Death Imagery: A single body used to represent the entire working class who have been killed by capitalism (due to working conditions, low wages, no social/political/economic rights)

Meanwhile (1).Indians are falling

into the sugared chasms

of the harbours, wrapped

for burials in the mist of the dawn:

(2.) a body rolls, (3.) a thing

that has no name, a fallen cipher,

a (4.) luster of the dead fruit

thrown down on the dump.

THE SUFFERING:

(3.) Massed are dying - individuals have lost their identity. The dead are insignificant to the company - except loss of labor, money.

(4). Death Imagery: The flies (moscas) have eaten away at the fruit and have left them dead - corporations sucked the life out of the working people and the bodies are thrown away

Conclusion● Written as a political commentary of the United Fruit Company -

critiques the manipulation of the lower class by the USA (capitalism) and the rich political leaders in Central America

● Neruda’s use of:○ Allusions: Large corporations such as Coca Cola, Ford

Motors, Anaconda Mines - symbolism of the capitalism and unfair distribution of wealth

○ Tone: A shift in tone (sarcastic -> upset/melancholic) to emphasize the reality of the situation (death of the innocent workers).

○ Imagery: Death imagery (the flies eating away at the fruit), Central America being torn apart

○ Metaphor: the flies (las moscas) eating away at the fruit -> large corporations eating away at Central America

Today the United Fruit Company is Chiquita Brands International.