United Fruit Co.
(Pablo Neruda)
When the trumpet sounded
everything was prepared on earth,
and Jehovah gave the world
to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other corporations.
The United Fruit Company
reserved for itself the most juicy
piece, the central coast of my world,
the delicate waist of America.
It rebaptized these countries
Banana Republics,
and over the sleeping dead,
over the unquiet heroes
who won greatness,
liberty, and banners,
it established an opera buffa:
it abolished free will,
gave out imperial crowns,
encouraged envy, attracted
the dictatorship of flies:
Trujillo flies, Tachos flies
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, flies sticky with
submissive blood and marmalade,
drunken flies that buzz over
the tombs of the people,
circus flies, wise flies
expert at tyranny.
With the bloodthirsty flies
came the Fruit Company,
amassed coffee and fruit
in ships which put to sea like
overloaded trays with the treasures
from our sunken lands.
Meanwhile the Indians fall
into the sugared depths of the
harbors and are buried in the
morning mists;
a corpse rolls, a thing without
name, a discarded number,
a bunch of rotten fruit
thrown on the garbage heap.
Study
Origin
This poem was written by an author who faced contradiction with his father who never wanted him to become one of such. The latter’s reason for preventing his son was because dictatorship was present during their times where people were treated like robots and were forced to work without due recognition. Nerida’s time was one of the darkest days of the South and Latin America. This poem has something to be discovered by the readers.
Form and Structure
It was written in the most difficult manner, a free verse. No specific number of lines in each stanza was followed; it was like stream of consciousness as the readers go on reading the poem. The poem may seem to be disorganized at first, but then that is where we can see the beauty of the poem itself. Various representations of the United Fruit Company were all present in the poem. This will be further discussed in the succeeding sections.
Genre
It is a poem which deals on the domination of the United Fruit Company among Columbian people.
Theory
Semiotics was very visible. The sounding of the trumpet, Jehovah and the different corporations, these all presents concepts in relation when the author wrote this poem. That is why some other critics tell that there is propaganda behind this poem.
Analyze
The components of the poem were the following: symbols and imagery. The corporations mentioned in the first stanza of the poem were all big time and gives the idea of the success of the American business. The entrance of the United Fruit Company was the start of the Columbians’ suffering on the hands of the different dictators they had. Those dictators were described by the author as “flies.” Flies go to rotten things and this poem, Neruda emphasized the rotting of the Columbian government for allowing the entrance of foreign country, the United States of America in their own land.
The people had fallen into slavery and that their rights were all sacrificed.
Interpret
The poem was an eye-opener to those who are experiencing the difficulties of being ruled by other countries in their own lands. Nowadays, neocolonialism is still exists in our country. Some people are not aware of the things that are really happening in our country especially that they only know that those foreign countries are just investing in our economy.
