The exotic fruits of the banana and the pineapple function as powerful symbols of other realities and the imaginative boundlessness of the world. As the first of their kind to arrive in 17th-century England, they represent tangible proof of worlds that exist beyond the familiar confines of London. For the young Jordan, seeing the banana is a moment of revelation. The Dog-Woman notes, “This was the first time Jordan set sail” (6), recognizing that the fruit acts as a portal. Jordan’s gaze transports him beyond the grimy spectacle into a vision of a tropical paradise, igniting his lifelong desire for exploration that defines his character. This experience establishes a core idea in the novel that the greatest journeys are often those of the mind, and a single object can unlock infinite imaginative possibilities.

Years later, Jordan’s journey culminates in him bringing the first pineapple to England, an act that solidifies his status as a heroic explorer. The pineapple validates his quest, proving that the fantastical worlds he once imagined are real and can be brought back to transform his own reality. The fruits thus act as catalysts, bridging the mundane and the magical. They symbolize the discovery of new lands and of the mind’s capacity to envision and pursue alternate lives, reinforcing the novel’s argument that reality is far more expansive and wondrous than it appears.

Critically, both the banana and the pineapple are noted as products of Barbados, which was, in the 17th century, recently colonized. In the 1990s, Nicolas Jordan tries to imagine the feeling of seeing a pineapple for the first time and cannot, which is the result of centuries of exploitative relations between Europe and the countries they colonized, even after many of those countries achieved independence. The symbolism of the fruits becomes more complex when this history is integrated into a reading, including the fact that Fortunata is only free on her island far from England. Though the novel largely argues that freedom and liberation come from writing one’s own story, the banana and pineapple imply that that liberation may come at the cost of others’ freedoms.