An interesting metaphor about the palm tree. It's also the symbol of the Captain's ambition and self-absorption, his narcissistic concern for himself and his career even at the expense of his own men. This is why he is a terrible officer. The fact that he replaced the tree he had been presented with with another one they just dug up shows that it isn't the tree as such but its meaning in his warped vision of himself that matters. It's not "the" palm tree, it's any palm tree. What matters to him is that there is something tangible there, visible to all, a meaningless symbol of his authority, not the fact that it's not the tree actually presented to him, which is the only one that could have any true significance -- the only one that would have any true significance to a balanced individual proud of an achievement but comfortable in his command and in himself.
Two corrections:
The Captain doesn't buy a new plant. He sent a couple of crewmen out to dig it up. This also reflects his misplaced priorities and attitude toward the crew as his personal lackeys.
And, to state the obvious, this is the Navy, not the Army, as you twice said:
Mister Roberts has the intelligence to decipher this, he throws the plant into the Ocean to show human beings, even those drafted into the army, an army that separates enlisted men from officers with a rigid code -are not potted plants
It didn't required any intelligence to "decipher" what the plant represented -- it was obvious to all the men, which is why they all loathed it. Roberts simply did what none of them could do -- throw it overboard. But there was nothing to "decipher" or anything difficult to understand.
However, the conservationist in me decries the notion that Roberts and later Pulver took out their anger at the Captain by killing an innocent tree. I always hated this aspect -- the tree wasn't to blame for anything; it was a living entity that should have been left alone, and another way found of tormenting the Captain. I understand its being destroyed as a dramatic effect for the play but it's still annoying to me.
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