Lengua Para Diablo (The Devil Ate My Words)

[Excerpt from Banana Heart Summer]

by Merlinda Bobis

1. Characters

Father- lost his tongue to the devil

Mother- always complains about their life status

Little girl- narrates the story

Spanish Mestizo- employer of the father (the devil)

2. Setting

House of the family

(Neocolonialism- Spaniards)

3. Plot

The story started when a daughter suspected that her father sold his tongue to the devil. Her
father did not speak much in their house. Her father said that “the devil ate his words” which means he
forgot what he was about to say; that statement appeases his wife. Her father lost his job so he needed
to conciliate more. Her mother was always complaining about their hard situation so her father kept on
promising that he would buy them the things that would make them comfortable.

The devil that ate his words was her father’s employer who is a Spanish mestizo that owned
several stores in the city. The employer fired her father who is a mason after he found a cheaper deal for
the extension of his house. Her father didn’t say any word about his job to placate his family.

The daughter was wondering what the devil did to her father’s tongue. She was thinking that it
was cooked in mushroom sauce in the special Spanish way and was served in the devil’s platter. She
thought that her father’s tongue was luxuriating in a multitude of essences so she said that maybe he
should also sell his esophagus and his stomach for him to be pampered. She also imagined being cooked
and put inside a rich man’s stomach where she could know the feeling of too much affluence.

4. Conflict

Man Vs. Man

Conflict between the father being unemployed and the mother who always complains about their
situation which opposes the father’s promises to her. Once he lost his job and can no longer support his
family financially, his wife seems to mock him.

Man Vs. Himself

The father seems to have little or no dignity left anymore after he lost his job which makes him
unauthoritative in the family and have no say about the things happening to them. He has no more
confidence to share his own views and opinions and looked down by his children.

Man Vs. Supernatural

Conflict between the father and the “devil” he seems to tell that ate his words whenever he has
something to say. The Spanish Mestizo, the employer, is represented as the devil in the story who made
the father’s family miserable as hell.
Man Vs. Society

The situation wherein the father has to work for the family is the one allowed by the society in a
normal family setting. But once the father lost his job, he has been judged not only by the family but by
the society his into for not being able to support them and not being worthy of the title “Haligi ng
Tahanan”

5. Theme

How unemployment and poverty affects the family.

Dignity of the father

Gender roles in the family

6. Point of view

First Person Point of View

(Little girl’s Perspective)