Bananas: conflicting representations in Central America and the United States

Abstract

This essay analyzes the conflicting representations of the banana production in a Nicaraguan novel and in an
American cinematographic sequence published soon thereafter. To demonstratemy thesis, I first explore the
economic relevance of the banana in Central America and review the historical context on how the banana
production led the US multinational United Fruit Company to gain both an exclusive monopoly on banana
trade, and an excessive influence on the governments of the region. I then propose a critical reading of Bananos
(1942) by the Nicaraguan writer Emilio Quintana that highlights the thematic and stylistic features of
the banana exploitation narrative as a tool of denunciation. I contrast representations of banana production
in Quintana’s novel with that of The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat, a sequence in the movie The Gang’s All Here
(1943)which associates banana productionwith the so-called Latin American exoticism. By analyzing cultural
representations of banana production in these texts, this essay puts forth a comparative model of the banana
as cultural signifier.While in Central America, bananas come to symbolize the oppression and poverty
of local peoples, in the United States that same fruit represents consumerism and abundance.