Feed By M. T. Anderson: Summary

In his novel Feed, M. T. Anderson portrays a society so affected by capitalism, consumerism, and environmental damage, that humanity is no longer able to remember what the world was like before major corporations turned the entire human experience into a means of making a profit. As a potential future, this is entirely possible, considering the current economic and environmental climates that are suffering as a direct result of late capitalism and the disaffectedness of the corporations causing the most damage. Feed explores issues perpetuated by these major corporations that have become far more prevalent in today’s world such as the effect climate change has on our planet, the preying on the sick and dying, and the harmful and often dangerous …show more content…
Through the slightly uncomfortable imagery of a ‘beef farm’, Anderson shows us a world in which only specific parts of a cow are farmed, as opposed to the actual animal, with the occasional gory mutation such as horns or other vestigial organs. While something this drastic is unlikely in our own lifetimes, there is a definite correlation between climate change and declining food production. The predicted decreases in the production of crops such as maize, rice, and wheat are due to rising levels of carbon dioxide. These decreases would most greatly affect the underdeveloped and developing countries of the world, the people who rely on agriculture as their only source of income and/or food. However, like the society in Feed, we misplace the blame for this onto one another. We blame ourselves for driving cars that rely on fossil fuels, we blame each other for leaving trash on the street and/or not recycling, we blame society as a whole for not seeing this as urgent an issue as it really is, but we never blame the main contributors: major corporations. Like in Feed, it is the major corporations that hold the most power and control in our