Stephanie

Pablo Neruda uses his poem //“United Fruit Company”// to critique the powerful U.S.A companies’ domination of Latin America through brutality and explores the consequences of that control, such as exploitation of the region’s natural resources and mass killings. He uses biblical allusions to create irony and enhance the absurdness of the corrupt Latin American leaders and the brutality of the corporations. Furthermore, he uses fruit to symbolize the region, so abundant with natural resources, flies to symbolize the corrupt leaders, and using these symbols he explores the relationship between the two.

The author uses biblical allusions to genesis, and compares the original biblical story with his view on the reality in Latin America. Neruda clearly states that instead of Jehovah, God, handing the earth over to all of mankind, he placed it in the hands of a few, very powerful companies like Coca Cola, Anaconda etc. In the biblical story mankind had a Godly obligation to be responsible for the earth, thus when Neruda changes the original story we clearly link between the biblical sense of righteousness and these corporations’ perception that they had the right to expand, Manifest Destiny. The biblical tone is also clearly juxtaposed with the horror acts we know are committed by these companies, which produces an irony that causes a further mockery of these companies. Also, when Neruda refers to the “rebaptism of these countries”, after describing the “waist of America” as a lush area, “the most juicy fruit”, he increases the feeling of absurdity of the actions of these companies. Whilst baptism is a ceremony in which one’s soul is being “saved”, in Neruda’s version of genesis those who baptize the lands, destroy them and murder its people.

Neruda uses symbolism to portray Latin America, and show its exploitation. This imagery combined with the biblical tone of the poem is very reminiscent of the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit. This ideal world, abundant and rich with resources is being tampered with, torn, by the malicious companies that reach its shores. The juicy fruits become “a bunch of rotten fruit” due to the corporation’s brutality; they turn into a “surgery abyss”, as tends to happen to fruit when they are rotten. In the “surgery” trap created by the companies the “Indians fall”. Neruda alludes to the large scale massacres that occurred in Latin America, the locals were murdered and fell into their spoiled land, and their deaths were quieted, or in Neruda’s words, the Indians fall into the sugary abyss and are later “buried in the morning mist”. The people were caught in the mess that has become their land, caused by the companies, and were covered the very next morning, never to be identified.

Another symbol used by Neruda is that of the flies, which stand for the corrupt leaders of Latin America. Flies are parasites associated with the devil, and also give a connotation of uncleanliness. The flies, the leaders, are attracted to the sticky, damaged fruit, which had it stayed whole, would never have had to suffer the flies tyranny. Neruda is claiming that the greed and dominance of the enormous corporations has caused the appearance of the corrupt Latin American leaders, and that these leaders are subjected to the control of these companies, that are really their source of power. The many types of flies are either named leaders or adjectives describing the leaders. They are referred to as “drunken flies”, the leaders are drunk on their power, and also as circus flies which implies the comic nature of their lives due to the companies. However, Neruda ends with the description of “wise flies” reminding the reader that despite their terrible qualities they were still “experts at tyranny”.

Christal: Agree! However, I am not sure that I would agree with the interpretation of Pablo Neruda using fruit to symbolize the region although the region is indeed abundant with natural resources. In the poem, fruit is mentioned in the second stanza where the “Fruit Co. disembarks, /ravaging coffee and fruits/for its ships” and in the last stanza where the collapsed Indians are described as “a bunch of lifeless fruit/ dumped in the rubbish heap”. The region’s coffee beans and fruit are described as the “lands’ treasures” and the collapsed Indians are metaphorically referred to as “lifeless fruit”. I would thus infer that the symbol of the fruit represents the Latin American people who are having their land and lives taken away from them by the United Fruit Company.

Perhaps, the people who ‘were caught in the mess that has become their land’ are not ‘never identified’, but rather, the deaths of these natives are not known and acknowledged by the citizens of the more developed countries who purchase the United Fruit Co’s products as the company “spirits away” the “treasures/ like serving trays”. This simile suggests that the consumers outside of the region see only the final, presented product, cleaned from all of the dirty work that was undergone to obtain the fruit in the first place. To these capitalist corporations, the deaths of the people bear no particular significance. Pre-modifiers like “nameless” and “fallen” and “lifeless” highlight the forgotten nature of these people who have sacrificed their lives as a consequence of the companies’ actions.