This book made me feel bad (complimentary)

It’s crazy how much can happen in just 100 pages! This may end up being a five-star read after I mull it over some more.

The theme of moral ambiguity really stuck out to me the most while reading this book. Right away, we can tell that Edgar has a strong moral code. (Granted, it’s an odd one…) He works a pretty gnarly job, one that many of us would never dream of having. It is a taxing job filled with death, blood, and suffering. It is “impure but morally acceptable,” according to him.

‘Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth.’

He has made peace with this because he treats the cows with kindness. He soothes them as they enter his cube, and he blesses them with the sign of the cross moments before he gives them a mallet to the skull. He believes the animals do not suffer.

"He's not proud of what he does, but if someone has to do it, then let it be him, who has pity on those irrational beasts.”

While death, and perhaps even suffering, are natural, Edgar is in a business that extracts maximum profits from that death and suffering. They pay their employees very little, despite the back-breaking work, and the men can’t even afford to eat the product they help produce! In a way, the men are not that different from the cows they are killing. Edgar often describes seeing himself in the cows — literally, he sees his own reflection in their black eyes the moment before their death. They are both being exploited for profit.

"Two enclosures, one for cattle, and one for men, standing side-by-side."

It really makes you consider how we all have our individual moral compasses, our own understandings of right and wrong. For example, Edgar murders a co-worker for not stunning the cows properly and causing them to suffer. On the one hand, he kills somebody and throws their body in a river. But on the other… the guy was a total dick. We may view Edgar’s moral code as confusing, but that is because human morality is often messy and contradictory — especially under capitalism.

“They adhere to a code of conduct, and they all stand facing the same direction while grazing. This sort of harmony is unheard of in men.”

Like many of us, Edgar is trapped between adhering to his values and surviving the economic system we’re forced to live in. We can all moralize capitalism as much as we want, but the reality is, these men need jobs now. One of them pays for his daughter's eyeglasses by taking bets on how long he can hold his breath. There are starving families outside of the slaughterhouse begging for the cows that would otherwise go to waste, despite the risks of disease.

There is a moment where a young woman asks Edgar if he considers himself a murderer, to which he says yes. But when asked whether he is ashamed of it, he asks if she has ever eaten a hamburger and "how do you think it got there?" We have to consider that just because we keep distance between us and the bloody process, that doesn't make us any less complicit. Not to go Marxist on y'all's asses but this connects to his concept of alienation — The workers are alienated from their labor (they can't afford what they produce). The consumer is alienated from the production (they don't see the nasty bits). The product is alienated from its origin (a hamburger does not resemble the cow).

Edgar does end up eating his first hamburger eventually. "Round and seasoned like that, they don’t even look like they had ever been a cow. Not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.”