Analysis Of Eddie Lama's 'The Witness'

In the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” (1 September 2003), published by Los Angeles Times, author Jeremy Rifkin discusses how “... researchers are finding [is] that many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we imagined.” (Rifkin 61). Using academic diction, Rifkin develops his main idea with evidence such as “They [animals] feel pain, suffer, and experience stress, affection, excitement, and even love -- and these findings are changing how we view animals. ”(Rifkin 61). This suggests a pathos and logos persuasive appeal that broadens the reader’s understanding and knowledge in changing our perspective of the inhumane and inequality treatment that non domestic animals receive. Rifkin’s use of pathos and logos appeals is to

In addition to his solutions, Pollan’s modern narrative sheds light on the façade of our food industries; asking us to rethink what we know. Despite the mention of certain inhumane acts in All Animals are Equal, Pollan takes us one step further to uncover the reason for which we continue to purchase our corrupt food. We all know animal abuse exists, but the average consumer like myself is more worried about the best price and the fastest way to get a burger rather than how fairly the animals are treated in the process. Whether it be the confined living space of chickens or the mental and physical torture of pigs, we continue to blind ourselves from reality. Is it purely out of selfishness? Or are we too ignorant to come to terms with our wrong doings? Like Pollan explains, it takes seeing the abuse before the shame of our disrespect can be felt (pg.6). After seeing Pollan’s truth, I might now think twice before eating out and the choice to support organic produce can make a dramatic difference for those farmers who promote the ethical lifestyle.

Do animals have the right to a certain quality of life? How would your views change if our cooks got treated the same way cattle and poultry do? How would you feel about them being beaten and brought to their knees just to be detained to know how to cook todays specials? You might think that the food industry has no issues and no faults behind their tasty food, but when you open up the meat curtain, there is a different kind of world out there that is cruel and inhumane. In Robert Kenner’s 2008 film, Food, Inc., He shows the conditions that cows, chickens, and pigs have to live in. The dark and closeted homes in which the animals are closely compacted together and eating, sleeping, and walking in their own manure. As a person who would consider themselves an animal rights activist, most people would agree that the food industry treats their animals like products instead of living things.

Animals are beaten and abused on a daily basis due to barbaric individuals. Whether it be from harmful intentions or pure negligence most cases go unreported. “Deliberate cruelty may involve beating, shooting, stabbing animals, or setting them on fire. Neglect is not giving a necessary food, water, shelter, or vet care” (Human Society). The lack of attention and care for these animals can often lead to severe, and sometimes irrevocable damage. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, ALDF for short, website tells of one story where neighbors of a farm complained to the local humane society, “that the Colliers were neglecting many animals on their farm, including dogs and horses. When they went to their property to investigate, they discovered dogs and horses in several states of neglect and starvation and seized them out of concern for their immediate health”(ALDF). Sadly, however, it can become much worse for animals. Owners will sometimes purposefully abuse their animals. Unfortunately, occurrences like these are hardly uncommon. One such example, from the RSPCA of England, the Royal

The very hate I was taught to loathe, for my race has been scapegoated and hated since the dawn of mankind, was now slowly becoming part of me. Being swept away by the malevolent New York attitude caused me to ignore this paradox, to let it be taken captive by my anger. It pled with me to listen, to stop hating, but I shackled it to the back wall of my conscience. The overpowering ethic was bestial, fit for animals, not humans. I'm not talking about any lovable bunny rabbits or timid deer, mind you. I'm talking about vicious animals, like New York, cat-sized, hairy, filthy, germ-carrying rats that don't scurry when something bigger comes their way, that line their holes with a dead

In “The Way of All Flesh” the author Ted Conover describes his experience working as an undercover USDA inspector in a meat packing plant. He shows how extremely grotesque the industry really is by providing numerous examples on the health and treatment of animals, the conditions of the meat, and the health and treatment of the employees. Conover shows the reader what it is really like in the slaughterhouse by using descriptive language. Throughout the article Conover brings up the treatment and the conditions the animals are put in. Conover supports his arguments by appealing to the reader’s emotions, by making the readers feel sympathetic for both the animals and workers.

In discussion of inhumane treatment, a controversial issue is whether animals are entitled to their rights. While some argue that only humans have rights, others contend that animals should have the same privileges as humans. The author of “A Change of Heart about Animals,” Jeremy Rifkin, claims that animals should have better treatment. Rifkin rhetorically changes one’s view on this subject without the consent of the reader. Rifkin begins by showing the animals’ human qualities, then giving a counter statement to common objections, and finally ends it by utilizing negative language.

Today, the food industry has not just altered the American diet, but it has also had a negative effect within the labor sector as well as the animals meant for consumption and the lack of government oversight. Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, and Jonathan Foer in Eating Animals, illustrate the mistreatment of labor workers as well as the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry. Foer gives such examples of employees who work in slaughterhouses giving accounts of what goes on in the kill floors, and stories of employees who have witnessed thousands and thousands of cows going through the slaughter process alive (231). Eating meat does not have to be so inhumane for example, Foer quotes Frank Reese, who does not permit inhumane practices on his ranch that are cruel, and Reese believes that there are other ways of having a sustainable humane animal agriculture instead of the methods of the large corporate meat industry (238). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only what people eat, but how the government has neglected the issues of the wellbeing of labor workers and the animals that are processed for consumption.

Often in literature, authors create complex characters who experience turning points. The collection of short stories, Every Living Thing, captures moments of change, all inspired by an animal. One particular short story deals with a character who learns through hardship and changes from joy. In “Drying Out” by Cynthia Rylant, Jack Mitchell’s family had left him after he had fought war and worked hard. He became a drunkard and was put in a hospital but 3 animals changed his whole life.

Around 70% of all acts of animal cruelty in America is related to the use of work animals. Different people have different view on how animals should be treated. Some believe that animals deserve the same respect as humans, and others believe that animals are just soulless objects and should be treated as such. In Jack London’s magnum opus, “The Call of the Wild”, two of the characters, Perrault and Hal, are both shown to treat work animals very differently.

Sally Kohn feels the new age hipsters that ask for organic, humanely treated burgers, never think about the workers caring for the fair treated animal from which their burger came from. She sets a scenario were a customer asked a waitress about the wellbeing of the chicken on the menu, but not the farmers caring for the chicken going on to say, “… the characters in the sketch never ask, ‘Does the poultry workers who killed the chicken get paid sick days?’” (214). Those same people infuriated over the inhumane life style of animals, rarely even think of the inhumane working conditions the caregivers are offered. Animals care givers aren’t the only underappreciated food workers, food servers are also in these category. Many of today’s food service

One case of animal abuse in the U.S. food industry is the Central Valley Meat Co, located in Hanford, California. Employees at the Hanford Slaughterhouse were caught on video killing cows violently and inhumanely, neglecting to render cows unconscious before slaughter, and other forms of abuse. Many of the cows appeared to be sick and unable to walk as well. Under federal rules, sick animals can’t be slaughtered for human consumption. (Nidever)

Throughout the novel, Eddie also can be exemplified as a sympathetic character. sympathetic characters are when readers feel sympathy for throughout a story. The reader can feel empathy for Eddie, when the author describes the pain of Eddie’s gunshot wound. The pain was described to be unbearable and the description of the event of the gunshot pains a morbid picture in the reader’s mind. During Eddie’s time as a soldier in World War II, any reader can feel an astonishing amount of sympathy for Eddie. During, Eddie’s time as a soldier, he experienced, “A piercing pain ripped through Eddie's leg. He screamed a long, hard curse then crumbled to the ground. Blood was spewing below his knee. Plane engines roared. The skies lit in bluish flashes. He lay there, bleeding and burning, his eyes shut against the searing heat, and for the first time in his life, he felt ready to die,” (Albom 84). The reader can comprehend Eddies suffering and pain. Eddie was on the ground, in a war zone hurt and slowly dying. Readers can feel a lot of sympathy for when Eddie wanted to let go of the world and die. Before Eddie’s death, he ran under a falling amusement park ride to save a little girl, Eddie

Eddie loved animals. He was a vegetarian, treasured David Attenborough documentaries, and even had two dogs. That’s why, when he escaped to the countryside, he was thrilled. The views were breath-taking, the air refreshing, the silence serene. Eddie loved all the wildlife he encountered.

Many authors use their work to express their thoughts about the flaws in the societies in which they live. Lu Xun masks his criticisms of the once feudal society in China in his story, “A Madman’s Diary,” by comparing the feudalistic society to cannibalism. The story begins with the narrator going to visit two brothers. Upon arrival, the narrator learns that the younger of the two brothers has recently been cured of madness, and moved away. The older sibling offers the narrator his brother’s diary for the narrator to read. After the narrator’s explanation of how he got the madman’s diary, the rest of the story is composed of various entries from the diary the narrator was given. In the diary entries, it is learned that the madman is very fearful