Analyzing Wendell Berry's Essay 'The Pleasures Of Eating'

Aliz Smith

ENG 102

Dr. Schneider

November 1, 2015

Rhetorical Analysis of Wendell Berry “The Pleasures of Eating”

Wendell Berry’s essay “the Pleasures of Eating” tries to inform everyday people about the food choices and to be conscious of the environment from which their daily nourishment is obtained. His opinion of today’s people is that they are disconnected from the food itself and they are only “consumers.” In his opinion people do not know where their food is coming from and how it is prepared. We just reach to the shelf and select a processed item that is made up of a concoction of processed substances which are supposed to nourish our body. His main argument is: “The trap is the ideal of industrialism a walled city surrounded by

Today’s consumers no longer consider where the food is coming from nor do they understand what it takes to prepare soil, grow food, and its logistic all the way to consumption. Some of his audience may understand the logistic or chain of events from soil to consumption, yet choose otherwise. Berry said: “Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones”.

In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.”(p.69) These kinds of descriptions will move a reader to think of the industry as "evil." This technique is used throughout the article. Berry is trying to awake emotional and not logical responses from the readers. It is a kind of manipulation by the author until he back it up with evidence like Eric Schlosser does, when he writes about actual animal abuse: “The current FDA fee rules are primarily concerned with efficiency and utility, not public health. They allow cattle to be fed pigs, pigs to be fed cattle, cattle to be fed poultry, and poultry fed cattle.” (Schlosser,