World View: Human Life> Animal Life

As I reflect on the reading of The Jungle, I am deeply disturbed. The details and descriptions in this book are sickening. It took so much will power to actually push myself to keep reading. The thing that just

made my heart break was the treatment of the animals. They didn't even care how they heartlessly killed the animals or the shrieking of the hogs as their throats were slit. I was in complete shock at how unaffected the workers were to such horror.

The treatment of these animals is horrendous. I have this image in my head of when I used to read Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a child and they only killed animals at certain times of the year and never more than they needed. They rationed their food so it never went to waste, and they always used every part of the animal that they could. That is not the case anymore, and especially not the case in The Jungle. Since when do we get to treat animals with no respect as if their life means nothing? This thought really hit home when the book talked about, “Is there no Hog-God?” Animals are not treated as a life, but more a body of meat held together by skin. It’s as if they grow the animal as if it were a fruit growing on a tree, and when it just ripe they pick the fruit similarly killing the animal. I can only imagine what my thoughts will be as I read more of this eye opening book.