Through the use of anecdotes in the article “A Savage Life”, Suzanne Winckler effectively points out that it is important to understand where your food comes from. Winckler helps convey to readers that while butchering animals is no fun, it is necessary for the survival of omnivores. She argues that meat-eaters are out of touch with reality; instead of recognizing that an animal must be sacrificed for their meal, most consumers mindlessly devour the food on their plates – without a thought of where their food came from. Winckler states “I am too far gone in my rational Western head to appropriate the ritual of cultures for whom the bloody business of hunting was a matter of survival” (634); in this statement she adequately appeals to logos …show more content…
It is like putting on an invisible veil of resolve to do penance for a misdeed” (633-634). Clearly, Winckler does not enjoy the act of slaughtering chickens; she appeals to pathos in this quote by showing she is remorseful for taking their lives. “Slaughtering my own chickens is one of two opportunities (gardening is the other) where I can dispense with the layers of anonymous people between me and my food. I have no quarrel with them. I just don’t know who they are” (633). Winckler makes an important point here – consumers will never be fully aware of the complete process their food goes through; therefore, shoppers should be closer to their food. Most people don’t think about where pigs are raised and then slaughtered to later be turned into bacon, for example; in a possibly unsanitary factory. According to Winckler, it would be much safer for omnivores to cultivate their own produce and raise their own cattle for steak, opposed to purchasing these products from a grocery store. She continuously presents plausible arguments for why one should be close to their food. To support her thesis, Winckler admits her “mother, who was born in 1907, belonged to the last generation for whom killing one’s food was both a necessity and an ordinary event” (633). She refutes “my survival does not depend on killing chickens, but in doing so I have