when discussing the Lime I tthink that there a re two important thing to keep in mind. First the drangon sceen. Charlie has his lime in his pocket at this point but tells the dragon he has nothing. Second we must think of his lime as his burden, a sour one. Charlie must accept that he is the son of a god and has power. Hence the first day in paradice he doesn't bring the lime with him and accomplishes nothing of his purpose on the island. It is when he is in the bar and does something with the lime that he comes to achievement.

PS. a note to GMZoe on british humor. The whole of the humor of which you speak is that the inadimate object has meaning for the laugher but is lost on the laughee.

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk:

PS. a note to GMZoe on british humor. The whole of the humor of which you speak is that the inadimate object has meaning for the laugher but is lost on the laughee.

as a british person...what?

I completely agree that we readers make our own meaning--at the very least, enlarging on what the author may have intended.

"Put the lime in the coconut"--Thank you Capt. Crash! My thought exactly (which, by the way, was Harry Nilsson's take on goofy Caribbean songs [location/theme connexion], and folk medicine [theme of healing] by way of John Lennon [English connexion] & all the drugs they were doing. Anyone who doesn't know this song is hereby assigned to go listen to it immediately (along with Jump into the Fire). And dance!

Also, a lime is more of a non sequitur than, say a lemon (sourness, lemons into lemonade, etc.), an apple (Eve, sin, etc.), or a banana (!). That is, there are few traditionally known symbolic connexions, so it's more anonymous or "meaningless" to start with. I echo the English-humour absurdity--it's Pythonesque (yeah, yeah, I made that up).

But somewhere lately, I read that lime green is the color of genius... While Mr. G probably didn't intend that, think about a limes's characteristics: it's a very ALIVE color, it's a bit of a wake-up, the flavor is zingy and piquant but more complex than lemon...

Plus it's portable--fits nicely in a pocket (as does a banana, but we ain't goin' there).

Yes, limes are a lot like lemons except they're green (instead of yellow) and have a duskier taste that......

........

>*<

Uh, what were we talking about?

The Latin word for "a military frontier" is "limes". Toynbee makes a big point of the difference between a border as a "limen" (Lat. "threshold") and a "limes" in the decline of a civilization.

We could understand the lime as a symbol of Charlie's desperate need to establish personal boundaries and prepare to defend them, a task which he successfully accomplishes in the course of the story. He finds the balance between a border that shuts everyone out and a border that lets others in on a case-by-case basis.

Yes, I know it's a far-fetched interpretation, but that's just me. ;-)

Bob.
aka Adastra, the Wizzard of Jacksonville

I know I'm replying to an old thread here, but are you guys serious? The lime is the thing by which the people that are on the island that are not Mrs. Higgler to know whom Charlie is. That's why every time he asks after her he's greeted with the question, "Are you the one with the lime?" Since he doesn't have it on him, he can't show it to them. Then when he does, his niece goes to get Aunt Carianne for him. I thought this was obvious.