Plantains and Bananas

doi:10.1017/9781108976367.005

Chapter 4 - Plantains and Bananas

from Part I - Commodities

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2023

Felipe Martínez-Pinzón

Edited by

Fernando Degiovanni and

Javier Uriarte

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Fernando Degiovanni: Affiliation:
City University of New York
Javier Uriarte: Affiliation:
Stony Brook University, State University of New York

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Summary

This chapter will examine the representation of labor in Latin American texts relating to the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of two hybrid species of the Musa paradisiaca, the sweet banana and the starchier plantain in late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In a span of seventy years, bananas would go from being represented as fruit of independence to fruit of horror, attesting to the violence embedded in the transition from local farming to the industrial plantation. Unlike the sweet banana – which would be at the center of these transitions – the starchier plantain would remain offstage in this global industry. The differences in the representation of bananas and plantains respond to changes in their production and show us how representation of a fruit depends on how capital makes it work (or not) for its own profit.

Keywords

industrialization in Latin America representations of the tropics United Fruit Company Musa paradisiaca Banana Massacre nineteenth-century Latin America

Type: Chapter
Information: Latin American Literature in Transition 1870–1930 , pp. 59 - 73

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976367.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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