Money Mazes, Media Machines, and Banana Republic Realisms

Abstract

AbstractThis article resurrects the literary source of the phrase banana republic: O. Henry’s only novel, Cabbages and Kings (1904), which was inspired by his experiences in Honduras after fleeing from charges of embezzlement. Set in a fictitious country called Anchuria, the narrative grew out of two short stories titled “Money Maze” and “The Phonograph and the Graft.” O. Henry is seldom considered in discussions of US realism at the turn of the twentieth century; nevertheless, I argue that Cabbages and Kings parodically deploys a mode of “banana republic realism” that sheds light on the role of media technologies in the processes of imperial expansion and financialization. Given Lisa Gitelman’s claim that media are “integral to a sense of what representation itself is,” how do the ties between media and money impinge on the claims of realism—especially in enclave economies where the same corporation cultivating the export commodity might also control currency and communication technologies? With an eye to debates about realism in our own era of cryptocurrencies and algorithmic trading, the article points to the banana republic as a privileged site for understanding what happens to realist representation at moments when media become increasingly integral to the economy.