Upload
jade-lewis
View
222
Download
1
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
“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.