Firstly starting off reading this story the pongo, who is a servant, interacts with the landlord who constantly humiliates him and belittles his appearance and skills. RIght off the bat I am feeling sorry for the pongo and wishing that the landlord would let up. Due to the pongo being to himself and even belittled by the other staff in the house it seems as though the landlord makes a point of being extra hard on him. Seeing some mob mentality here in terms of the treatment towards this particular servant.
It became particularly interesting when the pongo started to tell the Lord about the dream he had where they both died, and lay naked in front of St. Francis being judged. This reminded me of a saying the goes something along the lines of “stay humble all of our graves are the same size”. In terms of after we have left this Earth there is no worldly comfort or material objects that you may have in whatever awaits us. This scene illustrates this in terms of both the pongo and the lord laying side by side with each other.
There is a plot twist at the end as the lord war smeared in honey of sorts while the pongo was smeared unevenly in gasoline. Then St. Francis ordered the old angel that did this to the pongo to ensure that both of them spend the remaining time licking the others body with the respective substance on them. Therefore even though he was smeared in mud and gasoline and stank the lord was ordered to lick his body clean of this. This is where the story ends but I can only imagine what must have awaited the pongo in this story after he relayed his dream to the lord.
Throughout the story I was reminded of something that my religion teacher would tell us in high school, this being that Jesus hung out with the poor, prostitutes, and other people with disabilities. Therefore who is anyone to judge someone else’s faith, or more so value as a human being. This story brought a lot of these messages back for me in terms of the lord wanting to dominate and ridicule the pongo when at the end of the day he may have another thing coming when this man of “faith” leaves this Earth.
It’s worth saying that, in his dream, the pongo is smeared not so much with gasoline as with excrement! The master will end up literally eating shit for the rest of eternity…
And yes, it’s interesting to note that the story doesn’t really challenge a Christian framework, but perhaps shows that, even though it was a legacy and instrument of colonial violence, Christianity could also be (strategically?) reappropriated by the victims of that violence.
I really enjoyed reading your analysis. Although the pongo and the lord were smeared in their respective materials as a punishment to the other, I thought that it was interesting to view the materials as a manifestation of who they were on Earth. On Earth the lord was treated above others and handled with grace while the pongo is seen as dirty and brackish by the lord. I feel as if there is almost something more there that I wish I could delve into. I grew up in Texas where I saw a lot of weaponized religion. The groups that tend to be marginalized by faiths are the exact groups that Jesus would preach to and surround himself with. Pongo his whole life is covered with the darkness of his skin and was relentlessly antagonized for it by the master. On the other hand the master did nothing in his life to deserve his honey coated surroundings. The ultimate punishment for the pongo’s abuser is to eat what he dished out.