The author is fully aware of the irony that he cares and thinks so much about this pig that he was planning to butcher.
It reminds me about when I was a kid and didn't care much about animals until one of my rabbits died because I'd placed it in a cage without shelter and not brought it back in before a heavy cold rain.
I had to kill it, as I realized it was suffering and I guess that was the day I started caring about animals.
"Making the reader think" seems reasonable to me, especially after doing a bit more research on E.B. White.
While it's nice to think that this is the goal of the story, I also wonder if it's not actually giving people a way to rationalize inhuman behavior. By his own account, White is saying "murder" and it seems this wording is intentional. Looking at other comments, it's clear there's a compartmentalization that happens when people try to reconcile having empathy for living things then murdering and eating them.
It's almost as if it's giving permission to people by saying they're more human because they have empathy for a creature that they'll later murder and eat.
Are you actually having trouble understanding the story and the emotions involved, or are you just looking for as many opportunities as possible to call the slaughter of an animal raised for meat "murder", in a non-poetic sense?
I'm actually having trouble. I do admit that I have a hard time reconciling the empathy expressed with the brutality of murder but I've tried to get at the core of what's trying to be expressed.
You're trying to bait me and I think that's unfair. The story itself about the juxtaposition of caring for an animal that can be clearly empathized with while planning a per-meditated murder (White's words). White literally calls it murder. This is what the story is about. You think it's unfair of me to try and discuss it?
Before you judge me to harshly, notice some of the other comments to my original question aren't saying that they have a hard time reconciling the murder of animals with their emotional attachment, they're saying they love their animals while not caring that they kill them. It's almost as if they're saying that their empathy towards their animals gives them moral latitude in killing them. Is this what White was trying to express? I don't think so but that's what half of the comments to my question seem to be saying.
Was this what White was trying to say? That people should feel better about killing animals because they empathize with them? Or is he saying they should feel worse and work towards a world that doesn't kill animals? Or is he not examining this at all and just expressing an emotion without any introspection? I really don't know and I wanted to see what other people had to say about it.
> You're trying to bait me and I think that's unfair.
I offered a response in the spirit of your original comment. If you think that's unfair, then I don't know what to tell you. I think that you're being disingenuous with your posts as a rhetorical device to make a point about your perception of the ethics of using animals as food.
> White literally calls it murder.
In a non-literal, poetic sense. He uses the word murder two times, true.
> Is this what White was trying to express?
I don't think he's saying that people should feel better about killing animals. I think that he's acknowledging the reality that killing an animal for food is killing a feeling being. That it's better to go into an action with full knowledge of the result. I don't think it's a matter of making people feel better or worse about the situation.
He wasn't empathizing with the animal's death anyhow, at least not primarily; everything dies, after all. It was the unnecessary pain that was never a part of the plan.
It's almost as if they're saying that their empathy towards their animals gives them moral latitude in killing them. Is this what White was trying to express?
No. I don't think that is what White is trying to express.
I think it is the wonder that we actually care so much about these animals even when they are clearly (in the opinion of most humans) lesser than us.
As for why we are allowed to kill and eat animals this needs no extra justification as is governed by the same rules that allow eagles, hyeanas, lions and wolves to kill and eat.
Yes, people kill animals for food. Yes, people care about the well-being of those animals during the time they are alive and in their care.
If you see a contradiction there, that's just you.
I assume you are a "supermarket kid", like most of us here, and grew up away from the land, getting your meat from the invisible machinery of modern industrialized food production. Now you seem to have gone off eating meat, and apparently feel quite morally superior. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
From this position of inexperience and moral superiority, of course you are unable to process the nuanced emotions conveyed so skillfully by White. Unable to reconcile the essay with your black-and-white moralistic view of the world, you blame the author for lacking introspection. This is why you are sensing some disdain in the responses you are getting.
The author is fully aware of the irony that he cares and thinks so much about this pig that he was planning to butcher.
It reminds me about when I was a kid and didn't care much about animals until one of my rabbits died because I'd placed it in a cage without shelter and not brought it back in before a heavy cold rain.
I had to kill it, as I realized it was suffering and I guess that was the day I started caring about animals.