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Meatworks
MEATWORKS
-asking reader to consider or reconsider their viewpoints on the ethics of slaughtering animals, the moral case for the intensive farming of animals
-the audience is compelled to follow the persona in their discovery of the disgusting nature of industrial slaughter and human actions and in turn another way of seeing the world
-autobiographical – working at a slaughter house
-forces persona to consider their own mortality
-offering a critique of the way our meat is given to us and more broadly the impact humankind has on nature
-deeply pessimistic about human agency – discovering the greed and moral corruption of humankind more broadly
-the persona feels alienated from the process, from humanity, causing them to contemplate
REASONS FOR DISCOVERY
-out of necessity as it is morally corrupt
-persona feels alienated and so is forced to contemplate their values
TYPE OF DISCOVERY
-spiritual – considering the role of humans critically
-emotional – persona experiences disgust, horror and sadness when forming their own values, the memories are traumatic
-confronting and provocative– experiences of death, confronted with mortality and experiencing an ethical epiphany/challenging the reader’s values
Meatworks
CONTEXTUAL LINKS
-Buddhism – ideas of non-violence extends to animals - suggests you make a choice about morality and your commitment to peace (Therevada is the only form that prohibits eating meat)
-animals kill one another due to animal instinct though humans are gifted with reason and understanding yet still kill and so it is inexcusable
-the philosophy of transcending sense desires and states (sex, violence) which can lead to pain
-Western Judeo-Christian ideas about the Great Chain of Being – nature is below human capability – GRAY IS AGAINST
- Gray’s personal experience of working on a slaughter farm
RESULTS/IMPACT
-new outlook on the role of humans, in relation to nature
-causes reader to reconsider the way they use/treat animals and possibly change their way of life
-a new perception on the actions and intentions of humankind (greedy, selfish)
PERSPECTIVES
-the persona forms a new perspective on the way we treat animals and the rights humans have in this
-forces reader to consider this new way of seeing the world and the role of humankind
-humans are not superior to animals in anyway and therefore do not have the right to slaughter them for their own gain
-potentially challenges or affirms the reader’s perspectives on morality of man and mortality
- he takes a non-Western perspective
Meatworks
‘using a greasy stick/shaped into a penis’ – phallic imagery, enjambment – shock value to heighten the reader’s disgust. Associating sex with violence – relates to Buddhist philosophy of overcoming/transcending sense desires. ‘gnawed it hysterically’ – lexical chain of cacophonous imagery – assaulting reader with sounds as well as smells and images ‘louder and louder, then, shuddering, stopped’ – lexical chain, the growing aural imagery is being extended into a cacophony, the reader is confronted – positioning against ‘fused every light in the shop’ – alliterative couplet – reflects halting of the machines
- a quiet moment as the persona contemplates the events – process of discovery ‘I had to lug gutted pigs/white as swedes’ – simile alluding to Sweden’s history of white supremacy – relating to the humanity’s discrimination against species. ‘Lug gutted pigs’ – stop consonants recreates rhythm of machines – the processes are going again after a moment of thought and the persona is now having a reflection – retrospective part of poem ‘their dripping’ – elision – persona is being euphemistic and not specific – memories are traumatic – emotional discovery ‘solidified like candle wax’ – simile relating to the demotic and everyday – euphemistic approach as above – hiding the truth, avoiding contemplating what is actually happening at the meatworks ‘We got meat to take home’ – first inclusive pronoun – persona is now admitting their involvement, lifts the charade that the persona is different from the rest ‘snail-sheened flesh’ – sibilance , continuation of motif of small creatures like insects
- evocative imagery ‘you found, around the nails, there was still blood’ – second person, accusative tone
- forcing reader into position of persona to heighten their revulsion ‘the shiny, white-bruising beach’ – allusion to flesh , reflects and intensifies imagery of ‘white as swedes’ and ‘snail-sheened’ further heightening reader’s disgust. Suggests the traumatic and deeply disturbing nature of these experiences which the persona cannot escape, even outside the meatworks.
Meatworks ‘in mauve light’ – colour imagery – suggests nature has become infected by human greed and violence – links to criticism of human actions in FaDW ‘the beach, and those startling, storm-cloud mountains, high’ – natural imagery and exclusive pronoun ‘those’ – persona has become alienated from nature due to their experiences and its presence is startling ‘furthest fibro houses’ – alliteration intensifies distance between persona and nature. Juxtaposed to the ‘high’ mountains which are internal – works of man are viewed as impermanent and polluting. ‘my wife/walked’ – enjambment – suggests disconnection from her as well ‘I’d scoop up shell-grit/and scrub my hands’ ‘the icy ledges of the surf’ – natural imagery, enjambment focuses upon cleansing and healing powers of nature in contrast – cleansing himself of the pollution of the meatworks and so human actions ‘working with meat was like/burning the live bush’ – simile is an allusion to the ‘burning bush’ of Judeo-Christian scripture – relates to Gray’s standpoint that these Judeo-Christian ideas about nature are what is wrong with Western thinking ‘fertlilizing with rottenness/for the frail green money’ – motif of fertilizer and insects ‘hot-fertlizer-thick’, colour imagery – connected to greed and corruption ‘then-- /the way those pigs stuck there, clinging to each other’ – double em dash – the persona’s final attempts to thick their way clear of the moral conundrum, ending with the image of fear drawing empathy for the reader – we must think slaughter is wrong.
MOTIFS
Insects, vile creatures human greed, money fear, sympathy from reader cacophonous imagery ‘bellowing’, ‘hysterically’, ‘shuddering’ fragmentary rhythm focusing on repetitive nature of the task, not being specific –persona’s attempt to draw attention away from the nature of it
