Eating Animals Rhetorical Analysis

In the book, Eating Animals, author, John Safran Foer engages his audience on an investigation for deeper knowledge on animal consumption and ethics. Foer conceives that animal agriculture, through factory farms, is geared more so towards the callous slaughter of animals than human consumption, thus, negatively effecting the world. I agree with the thesis put forth by Foer because the slaughter process is brutal and unnecessary and a main source for the earth’s deterioration. To address his issue on Factory Farm slaughtering, he uses gruesome examples from the beef, chicken, and fish industry. Using the examples allow the audience to visualize the pure nightmare that many animals call reality. For example, Foer researched slaughter house

One can argue that the method leading to their demise is unimportant, but morality plays a role in this problems. This is where Foer tugs on your heart strings with his cleverly heart melting story telling. He wants the read to have an emotional connection for the animals we harvest. In addition to the documented cruelty, painful descriptions of chicken processing creates uneasy atmosphere for the audience. This is needed to keep the argument up to date and alarming. Again, he explains, “Most male layers are destroyed by being sucked through a series of pipes onto an electrified plate” (48). Since a male layer is useless to their company they’re are horrifically “destroyed” (again a term Foer emphasizes as undefined). Foer wants the reader to feel remorse for the defenseless to prove Factory Farms are more interested in vicious forms of killing than the

He wants the audience to understand how they are being exactly effected, not just anyone. For instance, Foer states, “Smithfield, like others in the industry spray the liquefied manure onto fields…swirling gases capable of causing severe neurological damage” (176). In their defense, Foer reveals to the audience that Factory Farms believe the field will absorb the fecal matter (176). In contrast, he refutes, “Runoff [fecal matter] creeps into waterways, and poisonous gases like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide evaporate in the air” (176). This is important to Foer’s argument because communities close to these farms are negatively affected, which effects our