An Analysis of Pablo Neruda’s The United Fruit Co. Essay

The most important aspect that differentiates this poem from many others is the dramatic use of dual language. Because many readers must use the translated notes to understand the Spanish portions of the poem, it requires them to deeply consider the speaker's connotations. Many readers will not realize Cervantes' intentional placement of the Spanish portions. Stanzas one, two, and three begin in English and end in Spanish. However, stanza four begins in English and ends in English with only one line in the middle consisting of Spanish. Though it is overlooked, this tactic offers a path upon which the subconscious may embark. To the speaker, California has been overrun and forever changed by the white people, represented by English. The single Spanish line is a representation of the speaker herself and exemplifies how truly lost she feels in this place. “Poema para los Californios Muertos” is a prime example of the importance of a dynamic use of language and the strength it brings to a poem when utilized to its full

In Sherman Alexie’s poem “Hymn”, he talks about the election and how it negatively impacted the country. Alexie uses rhetorical questions such as “How much do you love the strange and stranger?” and anaphoras like “we” to describe his view of America. Near the end of the

Life, liberty, freedom, equality, opportunity, and so many other words have been used to describe the United States of America. Every American child grows up with the words “the land of the free” pounded into their heads, and every morning schools declare America as a place of “liberty and justice for all.” Such inflated rhetoric presents America with large shoes to fill. Thus, America’s shortcomings should not be surprising. Langston Hughes and Upton Sinclair were two 20th Century writers, who saw past this idealistic talk and saw the jungle that the United States really was. Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Let America be America Again”, “Let America be America again. –Let it be the dream it used to be. –Let it be the pioneer on the plain –Seeking a home where himself is free. –(America was never America to me) (1).” He highlights not only the experience of African Americans during the 1930s, but identifies with other oppressed groups including immigrants writing, “I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—And finding only the same old stupid plan –Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.” Likewise, Upton Sinclair conveyed his repulsion to immigrant oppression during the Industrial Revolution in his book The Jungle, emphasizing the gullibility behind trusting the grandiloquence of the American dream.

The poem begins explaining to the reader the story of a Mexican American as he worked in an industrial factory at some point in his life. “In the factory I worked, in the fleck of rubber, under a press of an oven yellow with flame.” (Lines 1-3) Soto uses visual imagery to describe the color of

The purpose of including this allusion is to demonstrate that the boys did not come to Mexico for economic reasons, but rather to play Cowboys and Indians. This quote also shows the economic superiority of the United States to Mexico, because the dollar is significantly stronger to the peso. By including this in the novel, the reader is left to question why the boys would leave a safer and more prosperous life in the United States.

Author Blanco indicates that it is unnecessary to seek for recognition from others to buttress one’s belief in one’s cultural identity. The narrator is not reserved with his cordial welcome to his cousins, who are from New York and are the most “American” girls in his Cuban family. However, when the cousins arrive, they are thrilled to be entertained with the Cuban food they have been craving for months. The narrator is bemused by this contradiction and says, “How weird. Why should my primas crave anything Cuban?” (Blanco 121). The author draws a dramatic contradiction between the girls’ obvious American identity and their longingness for their Cuban heritage. Thus, the author promotes the narrator’s confusion and leads him to reconsider his

Blanco states, “One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,/peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces/of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth/across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies (Blanco, lines 1-4). This quote gives a geographical visual of America. As Blanco makes another statement, “My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day” (Blanco, lines 7-8) he uses personification to describe daily American life. Another use of imagery is found in stanza four, “One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every

Before analyzing the poem’s content, it is imperative that the reader understands the historical context that encompasses a literary work such as “America”. As a Jamaican native, McKay traveled to America with the familiar hope that a new country could be

The second’s week reading the “All that trouble down there” by James Dunkerley tells how the US media represented Central America during the conflict times these countries faced. Most of the history of Central America were told by US journalist. Since, most Americans didn’t know what was happening in Central America and the Caribbean. When the US films show the border, it represents it as a margin, a ___ of civilization. This representation was being seen for a very long time, and there is a belief that Latin America is not or can be as good as the United States.

Galeano portrays this moment in Latin American history as the instant U.S investors took control over the industries. He details the dangers they went through when producing one item to export for the benefit of foreigners, and how they later imported the processed goods from those same foreign countries, injecting money only overseas. The fact that Latin America needed imports to survive initiated the imperial link the U.S has upon it. As stated by Galeano, “The growing dependence on foreign supplies produces the growing identification of the interest of U.S. capitalists operating in Latin America with U.S. national security”11, bluntly showing the relationship between the United States and Latin America. “With petroleum, as with coffee or meat, rich countries profit more from the work of consuming it than do poor countries from the work of producing it”12. Because profit was not being retained in the Latin American countries, nationalization of the industries became of importance. The United States offered intervention in order to protect everyone’s interests with the proposal of free trade, but this was no more than another manipulation to continue having power over Latin America and its resources: “Latin America’s big ports, through which the wealth of its soil and subsoil passed en route to distant centers of power, were being built as instruments of the conquest and domination of the countries to which they belonged, and as conduits

In the context of the colonial Latin America, the invention of America has been formulated from the perspective of coloniality - a logical structure of power and domination that transcends time and, by acquiring new configurations, keeps its contemporaneity.

Written over the course of 12 years, Canto General focuses on the plight of workers and the Neruda’s anti-capitalist beliefs. The series “The Heights of Machu Picchu” used the city of Machu Picchu as a symbol for capitalism. The poems discuss the horror of the labor and the uncaring nature of capitalism. In “Stone Upon Stone,” Neruda writes, “Machu Picchu, did you place / stone upon stone, and at the base, rags? / Coal above coal, and at the bottom, the teardrops? / Fire into gold, and within it, trembling, the heavy / red raindrop of blood? / Give me back the slave that you buried! / Shake the hard bread of the wretched poor / out from the ground, show me the servant’s / clothes and his window. / Tell me how he slept when he lived. / Tell me if he snored, / if his dreams were half-open, like a black hole” (85-87). Neruda also specifically addresses his issues with American capitalists utilizing and exploiting South American resources for their own benefit in the poem “United Fruit

Author ‘s thoughtfully use specific metalanguage to affect their audience. Meeropol does this with the use of metaphors. The main metaphor presented was the title, “strange fruit”. When the poem was written in the 1930’s lynching was a legal and common way

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, also known as Pablo Neruda was born on July 12, 1904 in a small town in Chile. Neruda’s mother died shortly after his birth, leaving him in the care of his father. Neruda began to write at the age of ten. Gabriela Mistral, who would later become a Nobel Prize winner, recognized Neruda’s talents by giving him books and encouragement he did not have at home. In his early teen years, he began to publish his writings under the name of what we know as “Pablo Neruda” in memory of the Czechoslovak poet, Jan Neruda, but also to avoid his father’s disapproval of Neruda’s interests in literature. This essay will analyze Neruda’s life and how it may have influenced his style, tone and other literary

Viaje a la Semilla es un cuento publicado en 1944 por Alejo Carpentier. Alejo Carpentier nació el 26 de diciembre de 1904 y falleció el 24 de abril de 1980. Alejo fue un novelista y narrador cubano que influyo notablemente en la literatura latinoamericana durante el “BOOM” latinoamericano. La critica lo considera uno de los escritores mas importantes del siglo veinte en lengua castellana, su estilo incorpora varias dimensiones y aspectos de la imaginación para recrear la realidad, elementos que contribuyeron a su formación y uso de lo real maravilloso.