Foreign Soil

by

Maxine Beneba Clarke

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Bananas Symbol Analysis

Bananas  Symbol Icon

Bananas appear in Foreign Soil’s third story, “Hope,” and symbolize the limits of hope. After Willemina offers Millie Lucas an apprenticeship at her sewing shop in Kingston, Millie’s father, Mr. Lucas, plants extra bananas so that he can afford to send Millie from their rural village in Cidar Valley, St. Thomas, to Kingston, Jamaica. Like most everyone else in their village, the Lucas family doesn’t have a lot of money, and Mr. Lucas has always wanted Millie to have the opportunity to make a better life for herself, so he does everything he can to ensure that he can make his hopes become reality. At first, the bananas grow fat and ripe, and it seems that Mr. Lucas’s hopes for Millie’s future haven’t been in vain. But a bad wet season results in a fungus infecting and killing the banana crops, and though Mr. Lucas eventually finds another way to secure the funds for Millie’s journey, the failed banana crops show just how tenuous Millie’s future is. Though Mr. Lucas might work hard and hope that he can give his daughter a better future, the poverty and unforgiving natural elements of his family’s village in the Cidar Valley create a great distance between hope and reality, severely limiting Millie’s access to opportunity. Though Millie and her father can dream of a better, brighter future, the bananas suggest that whatever future that awaits them is more often a consequence of chance than of hard work and personal ambition. 

Bananas Quotes in Foreign Soil

The Foreign Soil quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bananas . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Place Theme Icon
).
Hope Quotes

Mr. Lucas, crooning to his daughter’s future-crop with a deep, velvety calypso as he tended the plot after the rains, noticed the disease when, starting at the outer edges, the jade-green leaves started to yellow. Within two weeks the tiny Panama freckles expanded to dark pockmarks, and the man knew his daughter’s dreams were in trouble.

Related Characters: Millie Lucas, Willemina, Mr. Lucas
Related Symbols: Bananas
Page Number: 35-36
Explanation and Analysis:
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Bananas Symbol Timeline in Foreign Soil

The timeline below shows where the symbol Bananas appears in Foreign Soil. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Hope
Place Theme Icon
The Limitations of Hope Theme Icon
To afford to send Millie to Kingston, Mr. Lucas plants extra bananas in his garden. They grow beautifully. Millie’s siblings know the plants are meant to pay... (full context)
Place Theme Icon
The Limitations of Hope Theme Icon
At first, the bananas Mr. Lucas planted grow full and fat. But that October brings an especially severe wet... (full context)