Jacob as a moneylender and pig merchant prospers by taking advantage of other people’s misfortunes. But when he seeks to exploit the famine afflicting his village Tounga by lending money to the poor villagers with high interests, he does not reckon with a sacrilege his pigs would commit that will give the people an opportunity to feast on his own misfortune. When this happens, community gives way to individual desires, and the stomach dictates to the head what it should think and believe in. Reason bends to absurdity and custom bows to bizarre novelty. Life explodes into a sinister mess that points to only one outcome: Jacob’s and society’s ultimate ruin.