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From Lostpedia

Fruit is featured in numerous Lost storylines by the creative team's writers, and more frequently so than is typical for most any other serial drama in recent memory.

Sayid with the apple he throws to Sawyer, in a gesture of reconciliation in "Tabula Rasa"

Warden Harris uses an apple with Sawyer to con Munson

Kate visits the caves to throw an apple to Jack

Foreshadowing of the importance of fruit in his future? Sawyer pauses in front of conspicuous paintings of fruit, as he leaves Cassidy in "The Long Con". Little does he know of the role fruit is soon to play in his future on the Island, nor of his future daughter, to be named Clementine.

Fruit as a symbol of social dominance: Locke shows his nonchalance to Charlie's whininess as he sucks on a passionfruit during their conversation:
CHARLIE: " I didn't go swanning off to the Black Rock on the bloody A-Team mission... I think I'm entitled to some sodding answers around here."
LOCKE (sucking on his fruit): "What do you want to know?" ("Everybody Hates Hugo")

Fruit as a symbol of social dominance, Part II: Locke shows his nonchalance to Ben's whininess as he sucks on a mango during their conversation:
BEN: "I can assure you that Jacob is very very real. And we're gonna go see him, and he's not gonna like it. In fact I have a feeling he's going to be very angry. And that's why my hand was shaking because this is not a man you go and see. This is a man who summons you!"
LOCKE (sucking on his fruit): "Well I guess there's a first time for everything." ("The Man Behind the Curtain")

Kate pointedly refuses Sawyer's fruit, both literally and figuratively. ("Stranger in a Strange Land") It may also be a reference to the temptation of the apple in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve.

Recurring themes

Apples

• Sayid throws Sawyer an apple in a gesture of reconciliation
• Warden Harris is eating an apple when he speaks to Sawyer, then intentionally drops it and orders Sawyer to pick up the trash ("Every Man for Himself")
• Hurley's stash of food includes apple sauce
• The Swan computer is composed of Apple Computer components
• The Pearl computer's printer, which made the log printout, is an Apple Imagewriter II
• Adam and Eve's banishment resulting from eating an apple.

Oranges

• Locke is seen in a closeup smiling with an orange. This scene pays homage to The Godfather, as a trick Vito does for his grandson. ("Pilot, Part 1"). This orange trick is an easter egg in the S1 DVD: On the "Tales from the Island" page of Disc 7, go right from the "Main Menu" link to watch Locke filming the smiling orange sequence. (1:36),
• Jin is told the color of love will be orange. ("...And Found"),
• The accountant Ken Halperin tells Hurley that "Every one of your stocks is up. Your interest in orange futures skyrocketed after those tropical storms hit Florida."
• Emily Annabeth Locke has orange hair.
• The CIA told Sayid that Nadia was to be found in Irvine, CA, which is located in Orange County.("?").
• Locke's truck for his home inspection business Welcome Home lists a phone number with the area code 714, which includes Tustin, CA, which is located in Orange county ("Lockdown").
• The Room 23 video shows an orange flower, as well as orange fish. ("Not in Portland").
• Richard Alpert gives Juliet a glass of orange juice spiked with tranquilizer. ("One of Us")

Outside the episodes

• The Elizabeth, as well as the real boat used to film it, the Mowee, are both registered in Newport Beach, which is also the locale of Fox's series The O.C. (Orange County).
• Jack's tattoo features chinese characters from a Mao Tse Tung poem with references "Orange Island": "Standing alone in the autumn cold: The Hsiang flowing northward, Orange Island, the cape. I see thousands of hills in crimsoned view... ".
• The Vaccine had the label "CR 4-81516-23 42" The "CR" component may be an homage to Stanley Kubrick, who tried to incorporate "CRM114" into most of his creative works, including a "Serum 114" in his film A Clockwork Orange.
• Karl is kept prisoner in Room 23 in a method reminiscent the Ludovico technique, a fictitious type of aversion conditioning in the film A Clockwork Orange ("Not in Portland").
• Lost: The Board Game comes in an orange box or tin.

Bananas

• Ana-Lucia discovers that someone has been feeding Nathan in her prison pit when she discovers a banana peel under him. ("The Other 48 Days")
• Kate wakes Sawyer up by tossing a banana onto his chest. ("The Hunting Party")
• Locke sits outside Ana-Lucia's tent, eating a banana, waiting to ask her for her help in dealing with Henry Gale. ("The Whole Truth")
• When Hurley tries to recruit the survivors to fix the DHARMA van, Paulo refuses by saying he has to cut some bananas ("Tricia Tanaka Is Dead")
• The episode "Confidence Man" opens with Kate walking down a beach carrying an entire floret of apple bananas, as she encounters a naked Sawyer, and she ignores his figurative fruit. The staggering number of unripe bananas she is carrying foreshadows both her own upcoming ripening in later seasons (and eventual get-together with Sawyer in Season 3), as well as the heavy burden it ladens her with.
• Claire tells Jack that her diet consists of banana and boar. ("Raised by Another")

Coconuts

• Hurley quotes the "Lime in the Coconut" song to Sayid (as he is shucking a coconut). ("The Long Con"). This song was used in a Coca-Cola marketing campaign. Coca-Cola Co. was also involved in the Sublymonal.com promotion.
• Dave hits Hurley in the stomach with a coconut. ("The Whole Truth")
• Locke mixes his hallucinogenic paste in a coconut shell. ("Further Instructions")

Mangoes and papayas

Mangoes are an important commodity of exchange on the island.

• Goodwin offers Ana-Lucia a slice of mango he cut with the US Army knife. ("The Other 48 Days")
• Ana-Lucia throws Vincent a piece of mango as she tells him to go away. ("The Hunting Party")
• Mangoes and papayas are used as commodities of trade when poker is played. ("Lockdown")
• Kate symbolically refuses Sawyer's fruit (mangoes), both literally and figuratively. ("Stranger in a Strange Land")
• Hurley drives his Camaro through a pile of papayas in the opening scene of Season 4. ("The Beginning of the End")

Juice

• Kate drugged Jack Shephard by putting drugs into fruit juice in "The Greater Good"
• Kate drugged Kevin Callis by putting drugs into his fruit juice (lemonade) in "I Do"
• Richard Alpert drugged Juliet by putting tranquilizer into his orange juice in "One of Us"

Fruit salad

Charlie's fruit salad courtship

• Hurley was preparing fruit salad, and offered some to Desmond prior to the culmination of the latter's lightning experiment "Every Man for Himself". See also Lost-TV forum's thread on Hurley's fruit diet.
• Charlie courted Claire with fruit in "Par Avion"

Names

• Sawyer and Cassidy's baby is named Clementine, a variety of tangerine. In Alias, another of J.J. Abrams' shows, the name Clementine is suggested by Special Agent Sydney Bristow as a potential name for her daughter to the father and then fiancé Michael Vaughn. He dismisses the name, saying it sounds more like a fruit than a name.
• Sawyer calls Hurley "Grape Ape" to Jack. ("Three Minutes")
• Damon Lindelof makes two references to "Banana Lucia" in the official podcast on October 17, 2006.

Analysis

Bananas doomed the raft (theory)

It is a well-known marine superstition that bananas are very bad luck indeed. Here Craig dooms the raft. ("Everybody Hates Hugo")

THEORY: Fruit (indirectly) sank the second raft.

One of the most famous superstitions of the seafaring is to never bring bananas onto a boat.[1], [2], [3] Bananas are horrendously bad luck, and have historically doomed many a vessel.

Apparently, the redshirt midsection survivor Craig doomed the raft while loading it with bananas in "Everybody Hates Hugo".

Fruit vs. Weapons (theory)

With an apple and a knife, Jack symbolically considers the relative merits of fruits vs. weapons ("Lockdown")

Does Ana-Lucia inadvertently teach Vincent a lesson about fruits vs. weapons? As evidence, it appears Vincent is attracted more to the knife than to the fruit, foreshadowing further danger somehow related to Vincent ("The Hunting Party")

Ana-Lucia's devious ouevre to steal his weapon: First she distracts him with a false interest in his ripe fruit, which logically then leads to her false interest in his figurative ripe fruit, which finally leads to his weapon. ("Two for the Road")

Goodwin hands Ana-Lucia a slice of fruit on a knife, and he proceeds to try to recruit her to the cause of the good people, symbolically giving her a choice between life-sustaining fruit, and the knife. Here, she chooses the fruit rather than the knife, yet subsequently kills him. ("The Other 48 Days")

THEORY: Fruits vs. weapons is an ongoing and intentional contrast by the writers in the storyline of Lost.

Fruit is used as a device in the Lost storyline by the writers more often than alcohol, car accidents, or death. Only the use of weapons compares to the prominence and frequency of the use of fruits in Lost. This contrast is made obvious by the writers of Lost on several occassions:

1. When Jack and Sawyer play poker, and contrast the relative merit of fruit vs. weapons as gambling stakes. ("Lockdown")
2. When Ana-Lucia is carving a mango, and Vincent is attracted, but it is unclear whether he is attracted by the fruit, or by the knife. It is possibly that Ana-Lucia is inadvertently training Vincent about the relative merits of fruits vs. weapons.("The Hunting Party")
3. When Ana-Lucia attempts to steal a gun from Sawyer, her ouevre is to convince Sawyer that she is really after his over-ripe fruits, rather than his gun. This provides the pretense to attract him close enough to attempt to seduce him with a feigned interest in sex, i.e. his other, figurative, over-ripe fruits. Also, presumably because Sawyer is so busy gathering his fruit after their tryst, he does not even realize the gun is missing until much, much later. ("Two for the Road")
4. Ana-Lucia hands Goodwin a knife, and he proceeds to try to recruit her to the cause of the good people, symbolically giving her a choice between life-sustaining fruit, and the knife. She chooses the fruit, yet subsequently kills him. ("The Other 48 Days")

Fruit diet cures cancer (theory)

THEORY: Ben's tumor developed because he did not eat enough fruit.

Alternatively, the DHARMA provisions contain a carcinogenic preservative that has been long banned since the 1970's, and Ben's long term diet on it made him susceptible.

ROSE: A little fruit might do you good, too. Good for the constitution -- 
at least that's what they say.

("Collision")

Transcripts

Sawyer checks out Kate's swinging plantains as she strolls by him; she ignores his swinging plaintain. ("Confidence Man")

Collecting food is dangerous, hard work: Don't touch Kate's generous mangoes.

Hurley's fruit salad, as Desmond predicts the future: Is Hurley maintaining his fruit diet? Desmond isn't telling.

With a tactile demonstration with mangoes, Sawyer explains to Karl that he has accepted many a woman's fruits, but it's a rare one that you find that you name stars with.

It's a fruit bar buffet party ("One of Us")

Box man: You're boring me
("The Man Behind the Curtain")

Fruit diets

HURLEY: The usual - bananas, papayas, mangoes, guava, passion fruit, coconut. 
Some of those weird star fruits from up on the hill. 
Someone said they might be good for digestion. Let me tell you, they lied.
JACK: Well, it might help if you had a little bit more protein in your diet.

--("Hearts and Minds")

Shot of seeds in Kate's hand.]
JACK: Huh, gross little, grayish-yellow things.
KATE: Passion fruit seeds.
JACK: What are they for?
KATE: I'll show you. If you want to see? ... It was all Sun

--("Hearts and Minds")

KATE: Gross little grayish-yellow thingies?
JACK: Oh, no, no, no, these are slimy little bluish-black thingies.
KATE: Guava seeds.
JACK: What's a garden without guava? 

--("Hearts and Minds")

SUN: I woke up, washed up, walked with Shannon, picked some fruit, 
cut it up to feed Vincent. And then I was...
HURLEY: Whoa, you fed the dog? [Sun nods] Bingo!

--("...And Found")

[At the beach, Desmond has built a tower with the golf club on top, 
and a pole with wire sticking into the ground. It sits near Claire's 
shelter. We see Hurley chopping some fruit, watching Desmond.]
HURLEY: Is that -- art?
DESMOND: Nope. Just an experiment.
HURLEY: Okay. You want some fruit salad?
DESMOND: Thanks, I'm not hungry.

--("Every Man for Himself")

ANA-LUCIA [to Vincent]: Hey, go away. I barely have enough food to
feed myself.  [she cuts off a piece of mango and throws it so 
Vincent will chase it.] Here.

--("The Hunting Party")

ROSE: Jack, nice to see you out of the hatch. You could use more sunshine.
JACK: I'll take that under advisement.
ROSE: A little fruit might do you good, too. Good for the constitution -- 
at least that's what they say.
JACK: Well, if that's what they say. [Jack takes a piece of fruit from Rose.]
ROSE: Mmmm?
JACK: Where'd you get these?
ROSE: Well, now just because you're a little excited -- 
no reason to talk with your mouth full.

("Collision")

Weapons

[We see Hurley, Kate, Sawyer and Jack playing cards at the beach. 
There is a big pile of fruit on the ground between Jack and Sawyer.]
HURLEY: Dude, you got me.
KATE: I'm out.
SAWYER: Think you're in my head, Doc?
JACK: You've still got 3 papayas -- call or fold.
SAWYER: Well, you're in trouble now, Cool Hand. 
Pocket queens makes me the set. [he chuckles]
JACK [showing his cards]: King's wired.
HURLEY: Whoa, dude.
[Kate laughs, Sawyer looks crushed.]
JACK: But at least I'm not in your head. Well, I guess that's it.
SAWYER: What do you mean, "it"?
JACK: Sawyer, you're busted. I got it all. It wouldn't really be fair 
for you to go pick more mangos.
SAWYER: Oh, I've got a hell of lot more than mangos. You want to 
play real stakes, name 'em?
JACK [laughing]: It's a pile of fruit, man.
SAWYER: And I want it back.
KATE: Should I go and get a ruler? 

("Lockdown")

[We see Sawyer using a pole to get mangos from a tree. Ana-Lucia 
enters and picks some up.]
SAWYER: Hey, I've been knocking those things down for 20 minutes. 
Get your hands off of my damn mangos.
ANA: I didn't figure you for the fruit picking type.
SAWYER: What do you want?
ANA: I need a gun. 

("Two for the Road")

Indicator of stress and negativity

HURLEY: Did either of you see a guy run through here -- 
in a bathrobe, with a coconut? 
CHARLIE: No, I saw a polar bear on roller blades with a mango. 

("Dave")

MICHAEL: Where the hell are all the fruit?
LIBBY: We picked these trees pretty clean. Sometimes you can find them on the ground.
MICHAEL: Why don't you head inland? That's where all the fruit is on our side.
LIBBY: We don't go that way.
MICHAEL: Why?
LIBBY: Because that's where They come from.

("...And Found")

Ana-Lucia begins to discover "trust issues" when she discovers a banana peel hiding under Nathan in her prison pit ("The Other 48 Days")

[Back at the pit.]

ANA: Where are the kids, Nathan? Where are the kids? 
Not talking to me anymore? What's that behind you? 
Get up! [Ana throws a rock] I said get up! [Some banana skins are revealed.]
ANA [to the rest of the group]: Who gave him food?

CINDY: What happened?

ANA: I'm trying to find out what they did to us. [To Bernard] 
And you're taking care of him?

BERNARD: I didn't do anything. And what if you're wrong, Ana? 
We don't even know if there is a spy.

ANA: Whose idea was it to stay at the beach where they could 
pick us off one by one -- his -- Nathan's.

LIBBY: Well, they haven't come since you put him in there.
ANA: Who did it?

[Eko enters.]

ANA: You?

[Eko doesn't speak and walks off.]

PAULO: Why do we need to start a car?

HURLEY: Because it'll be fun. We could all use some fun. 
I mean, after everything's that happened we need it. 
[he looks at Charlie] Especially you, dude. 
So who's with me?!!

PAULO: Well, I've got to cut some bananas. Sorry.

("Tricia Tanaka Is Dead")

Miscellaneous

A slide from Room 23 --("Not in Portland")

• The blast door map notations mention "flora", which may be related to fruit: "Low priority zone for exploration: possible site for ground stufy of flora"
• The Lost Experience featured the website Sublymonal.com, featuring a drink (Sprite, produced by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company) which is based on a hybrid between lemon and lime.
• Also in the Lost Experience, correspondence from Dr. Hackett discussed a virus being spread, and in one of his letters he remarks "Your work is proving fruitful (pun intended!)". This implies that fruit was a possible carrier for the virus.
• The commune in Locke's flashback is based around a fruit orchard. --("Further Instructions")
• Sawyer and Cassidy's residence featured conspiciuously large still-life paintings of fruit. --("The Long Con")

• It has been revealed that these paintings were part of the location used by the Lost film crew. [4]

• The Room 23 video mentions fruit: "Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit" This is a quote from the Buddhist text Dhammapada: "The kind of seed sown / will produce that kind of fruit. / Those who do good will reap good results. /Those who do evil will reap evil results. / If you carefully plant a good seed, / You will joyfully gather good fruit." ("Not in Portland")

See also

• Food
• Apophenia

Fate versus free will: Even if you save an apple from falling, the universe will conspire to find another way to cause that apple to fall.("Every Man for Himself") Here the red apple foreshadows the Man wearing red shoes only four episodes later --("Flashes Before Your Eyes").

External links

• Theblackrock.org - CMD: Coconuts of Mass Destruction mystery page.
• Lost-TV forums - "Why Hurley isn't getting any smaller", includes discussion of fruit diet.

• See also Island Performance Reviews' question about Vincent with relation to the fruit diet in this thread.