The Poets And The Animals Analysis

The Lives of Animals is a metafiction novel based on a lecture given by a fictional character named Elizabeth Costello. Elizabeth is an animal rights activists who presents at Appleton College to inform other people on her values of how animals are treated so unethically. Moreover, Costello emphaisizes her belief that humans do not need to eat meat to survive. Moreover, Costello strongly disagrees with the use of farms (which she refers to as factorieies) and slaughterhouses where animals are brought in mass amounts to be killed for food. In addition, Elizabeth was invited to present two lectures and the first lecture is called “The Philosophers and the Animals” and the second lecture is called “The Poets and the Animals”. Elizabeth Costello …show more content…
Moreover, this comparison between Jewish people and animals takes away from the impact and the suffering that Jewish people endured in concentration camps (Kalechofsky 2003). In contrast, comparing the two also takes away from the suffering that animals endure. I think that the comparison is strong and is likely to catch a lot of attention. However, the comparison seems too strong in that it is surprising to hear that Costello would compare the events together. The holocaust was no doubt a devastating occurrence, but it happened a long time ago and the unethical treatment of animals has become a more recent discussion. Therefore, both events involve different topics and they happened and different points in time.
In addition, Hitler killed Jewish people because he did not like them, but animals are not killed because they are hated, but more because they are wanted for food. However, humans have come to lack compassion, and that is why animals are treated so poorly. Costello says, “It is only since victory became absolute that we have been able to afford to cultivate compassion. But our compassion is very thinly spread” (Coetzee