United Fruit Company

370 Words2 Pages
Pablo Neruda’s poem is a very vivid statement against the multinational company, United Fruit Company -- to which the author names the poem itself. He begins with a sardonic tone mocking the Creation, as God purposely bestowing the earth to multinational companies like Coca-Cola Inc and Anaconda Mining: “When the trumpet sounded, it was/ All prepared on the earth, /And Jehovah parceled out the earth” (1-3) Notice how the word “earth” is in small letter ‘e’ which pertains to land, as oppose to world. Neruda goes on to accuse United Fruit Company of neocolonialism—acquiring bountiful portions of his “own land” (8), Latin America, by hiding behind the term “Banana Republics”—seemingly helping the impoverished countries but is truly a self-serving entity that bred the rise of “flies”, the dictators such as Rafael Trujillo, Maximiliano Martinez and Jorge Ubico; and even those “damp flies of modest blood and marmalade” pertaining, perhaps, to the corruption of the common people as well. (6-24) He alludes to the process as a “comic opera” (16), a humorous musical drama or show implying that it is all just a façade; and calling it as such reverts to the ironic tone of the poem. The poem ends with the death of the Indian, referred to by Neruda as “a thing” and “a fallen cipher” (38-39). The latter meaning they have no weight, worth or influence, or that their true worth has become hidden. He further emphasizes his use of the former in the lines “a cluster of dead fruit/ thrown down on the dump.” He equates the Indian to a fruit-an object, a thing- nonchalantly thrown as trash. Furthermore, by using the term, “Indian”, he refers not only to the death, proverbial or otherwise, of the poor but rather, it diminishes the value of social classes and making it irrelevant. Instead, Neruda isolates the suffering Indian from the foreign colonial rulers—such as The United Fruit Co.,
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