Examples Of Cannibalism In The Cars

Chase Fuhro

Dr. Purnis

ENG 110

16 February 2023

Cannibalistic Politics The act of cannibalism is abundant in the world. It is frequently seen in nature among insects, fish, reptiles, and even mammals. There is, however, the subject of human cannibalism that has certainly made its mark in modern media and literature as a rather controversial discussion. In order to understand the discourse regarding cannibalism, it is vital to take a look back in time and see how cannibalism was viewed and employed in writings long before the 21st century. I argue that in “Cannibalism in the Cars” and A Modest Proposal, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift provide commentary on the topic of cannibalism by utilizing politics, emphasizing absurdity, and using irony

The stranger explains, “Mr. Gaston was chosen Chairman, Mr. Blake, secretary, Messrs. Holcomb, Dyer, and Baldwin, a Committee on nominations, and Mr. R. M. Howland, purveyor, to assist the committee in making selections” (Twain 42). By selecting certain men to control the voting process of who gets eaten, Twain presents the idea of higher power eating the lower power. This is a remark on how society at the time and at present have people of power frequently taking advantage of the lower class for selfish gain. Similarly, Swift presents the class structure in a closely related way. The narrator in A Modest Proposal states, “Secondly, the poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlords rent…” (Swift 4). In other words, the narrator expresses that since the land owners are already taking money from the tenants, they may as well take more from the poorer class solely because they can. This example is Swift’s representation of the notion of the higher class feeding off of the lower class in a figurative sense in society. Both of these texts have detailed examples of unfair political structures that Twain and Swift chose to comment on the reality of the cultures that each author lives

In “Cannibalism in the Cars”, the stranger goes into great detail about how he views the others in the train. The stranger asserts, “Messick was very well, though rather high-flavored, but for general nutritiousness and delicacy of fibre, give me Harris” (Twain 44). The calm and unbothered nature of which the stranger explains his thoughts on eating another man calls attention to how preposterous the scenario is. Twain uses absurdity to shed light on the way society viewed cannibalism at that time by inserting it into the story in a distressing way, so as to not have his main point of society’s view of cannibalism be out in the open. Likewise, A Modest Proposal is built upon an absurd proposition around cannibalism to mask its true intention. The narrator simply states, “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food…” (Swift 2). The narrator’s idea of making society better by eating children is obviously lacking any form of modesty and the ludicrosity of it further places emphasis on cannibalism. Swift’s purposeful direction of choosing this perspective supports the notion that the absurdity draws the reader in and is a utility to get the point across in a subtle way. Within both of these texts, the absurd cannibalistic representations are used to underscore the main point of addressing cannibalism