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What Is Animal Cruelty In Elizabeth Costello's Essay

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One can have their minds in the right place, but the way they convey their thoughts may seem impractical. An analogy aims to prove a point by relating and comparing ideas that are familiar. They give the audience an opportunity to interpret and visualize words that the writer is using. In the novella The Lives of Animals by J.M Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello fails to prove the appropriateness for her analogies. Elizabeth is an avid supporter of animal rights who guest lectures at her son’s work to showcase the issues of “animal cruelty”. Although the thought of treating animals humanely is an agreeable argument to side by, Costello’s approach to the subject was incorrect. In my opinion, she fails to use fitting analogies to explain why factory …show more content…

If she wanted to condemn animal mistreating, her analogies should have clear-cut evidence as to why it is horrible. However, the basis of all her disputes were absurd; she states in one of her analogies, “You misunderstand the nature of likeliness; I would even say you misunderstand willfully to the point of blasphemy” (PDF pg.17). Costello compared being oblivious about animal abuse to profane talk; the difference of these two topics do not seem to help her case at all. She then goes on to compare human and animal intelligence. The argument was based on the fact that scientists could prove, but also not prove that animals have high intelligence. By studying how an ape would get a banana using “smart” methods can only prove a miniscule amount of their intelligence. Costello then says that “human ‘reasoning’” (PDF pg.44) is the only cause of what separates us from animals. In spite of that, I would have to say that this reason would show how humans have progressed more than any other animal. The basis of this proves that we have a better understanding of how things work over other animals. The analogy that I would rather use would compare factory farming with houses to buy. I use this analogy to imply that we humans would be better off in better living conditions such as factory farming where we can satisfy the hunger that exists within. Lots of preparation

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