Death at the Abattoir

1095 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Selling of human organs ethical issue

Death at the Abattoir

The first time Professor Marx mentioned that we would be given the opportunity to witness a pig slaughtering, I immediately decided that I would do it. I chose the Abattoir because I wanted to be informed about the process. As I walked down the path to the Abattoir I tried not to think about what I was about to witness. After passing through the huge metal doors, stepping in the soap water to disinfect the bottom of my shoes, putting on the hair net, the apron, and hard hat, I felt like I was about to walk on to the production floor of a large factory. The room was an obsessive-compulsive person’s paradise. Everything was spotless and in top condition. On the ceiling were a series of wheels on rails that connected to hooks, which moved the pigs from station to station. Other than an assortment of carts, a monstrous machine in one corner, four butchers, and an inspector, the room seemed empty.

The pigs were kept outside the abattoir in a little pen area. The eldest butcher opened the door, and the first pig hobbled in on its arthritis-crippled legs to the first stage. The pig did not seem to have any idea what was going on as the butchers attached a chain to one of its hind legs. The pig was hoisted upside down, and the butcher punctured a gaping hole at the bottom of the pig’s throat. Blood immediately started gushing out. The pig barely struggled as its waning heart pumped out its blood onto the cement floor below.

After the pig died, they moved it into a vat of steaming hot water for about ten minutes to help loosen the hair from its skin. The carcass was then shifted onto a giant contraption which removes most of the hair from the now lifeless body of the pig. The machine is a giant metal basket that literally shakes the hair from the pig. As the pig violently rolled over and over, it resembled a hamster whose wheel had not stopped turning after it died.

I was taking a few steps back to escape the hair that was flying off the pig, when my finger brushed against burning hot metal. I looked down and saw a small tub of hot water that I later observed the butchers used to sanitize their knives in between slaughters.

Show More
Related

  • Worker Exploitation In The Jungle

    473 Words  | 1 Pages

    The way they prepared the hogs, first they were hung upside down, then they were attached to a moving cable; systematically “disassembled.” A worker would slit the throats, another one would “scald” them with hot water, then scrapped and gutted out. After that the hogs would get decapitated and refrigerated. The Chicago River became the “waste basket”, they would pump the blood and waste into the River. The hog’s lard would get converted into horns and the hoofs into glue. The intestines were made into sausages and contained mediocre quality chemically treated meat which included parts or rats and roaches. However, working in a slaughter house was more dangerous that eating their processed meats. Each year, hundreds of workers would get disabled and killed by on the job incidents. The workers work from around fifty-five to sixty hours per week and pay was low. They would earn around fifteen to twenty cents an hour. Each year the workers would get laid off for an approximate of eight weeks with no pay; they would have earned $475 per year. Most of the workers working in the meat packing industry would not earn enough money to support their families. Even though

    Read More

  • The Jungle: A Close Examination

    2732 Words  | 6 Pages

    There are a million people, men and women and children, who share the curse of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the end of their days to monotony and weariness, to hunger and misery, to heat and cold, dirt and disease, to ignorance and drunkenness and vice! And then turn them over to me, and gaze upon the other side of the picture. There are a thousand-ten thousand, maybe-who are master of these slaves, who own their toil. They do nothing to earn what they receive, they do not even have to ask for it-it comes to them of itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in such palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance-such as no words can describe, as makes the imagination reel and stagger, makes the soul grow sick and faint. (363)The Jungle, considered Upton Sinclair’s greatest achievement, shows the deplorable conditions in meat packing plants, as well as moving the reader on the path to socialism, something in which he truly believed in.

    Read More

  • Interracial Relationships in To Kill a Mockingbird

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    Margolick, David. Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. New Haven: Yale UP, 2011.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Conformity In 12 Angry Men

    1704 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jury service is an important civic duty that every citizen of the United States will ever perform. Legal knowledge or education is not required to perform the duty; all that is asked is that you keep an open mind, free of any preconceived ideas, personal bias or prejudices when presented with a case. In the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men, the jury consists of twelve white-males who are judging whether or not a young Puerto Rican boy from the slums stabbed his father to death. From the beginning of the film, all the jurors except one¬, Juror number 8, are convinced of the young boy’s guilt simply because of his social economic background. Although, the young boy was destined to be guilty from the start, the decision of Juror number 8 to not conform influenced the remaining jurors to objectively review the evidence, changing the minority vote of not guilty to become the majority.

    Read More

  • Insisting Equality: Twelve Angry Men

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    The 10th Juror was realistic because of his racism towards the young boy even though he did not know him, yet the juror eventually overcame his prejudice through reasoning. Rose showed that race had nothing to do with this case when in Act II; the 10th juror snaps but is quickly ignored by the whole group when he shouted, “Now you goddamned geniuses had better listen to me. They’re violent, they’re vicious, they’re ignorant, and they will cut us up. …I say get him before his kind gets us”. ..2nd Juror: I’ve hear...

    Read More

  • What Did The Second Pig Build The House Of The Three Little Pigs?

    354 Words  | 1 Pages

    Teacher: Tomorrow we are going to re-enact the story that I'm reading today. Has anyone heard the story of the three little pigs?

    Read More

  • Single-Gender Classrooms: Beneficial or Harmful?

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Linder-Altman, Dale. "Single-gender classes work, teachers and parents say." The Times and Democrat. 12 December 2010. Web. 20 April 2014.

    Read More

  • Exploring Gender Differences in Learning Styles

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    American schools are facing a huge dilemma: boys and girls are statistically doing different in school, with girls having the upper hand. For example, in some states, boys have the average of an entire letter grade below girls according to the article “Gender-Friendly Schools.” The article adds that roughly 70% of the D’s and F’s in school grades are given to boys and more than half of the A’s are given to girls. With evidence of a gender difference in learning, scientists and educators are looking for the source, namely nature or nurture, and if the learning difference is gender based or individual orientated. Based on the evidence surrounding learning, suggestions are given to teachers to ensure that all students are able to learn.

    Read More

  • Single Gender Classrooms

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whitmore, R., & Bailey, S. M. (2010). Gender Gap : Are Boys Being Shortchanged in K - 12 Schooling? Education Next, 53-61.

    Read More

  • Gender Differences and the Threat of Gender Stereotype in Science Education

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender differences in education is something of a common topic among educational studies since intensification in the 1970’s (Breakwell, 2003, p. 437). Gender differences among the subjects taught in school has been found to be somewhat more of a social construct rather than a concept that has any kind of scientific explanation because of the idea of gender differences being taken and changed into the idea of a gender stereotype in most parts of education (Crilly, 2013, p. 1).

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Single Sex Education

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    Boys in the single-sex high schools scored better in reading, writing, and math than did boys at coed high schools. Girls at the single-sex schools did better in science and reading than the girls in the coed schools. In fact, these researchers found that students at single- sex schools had not only superior academic achievement, but also had higher educational aspirations, more confidence in their abilities, and a more positive attitude toward academics, than did students at coed high schools. And, girls at the single -sex schools had less stereotyped ideas about what women can and cannot do. (Lee and Bryk

    Read More

  • Analysing Earth and Its Subsystems

    1451 Words  | 3 Pages

    The earth subsystem, often called the geosphere, can be considered as all the parts that make up the mass of the earth. The earth has three main layers, the core, the mantle, and the crust. However, the lithosphere is just the upper part of the geosphere, the crust and the top portion of the mantle. These parts contribute to the active plate tectonics. The theory of plate tectonics is that the crust of the earth is divided into separate solid plates that move independently on top of the mantle. The two major processes of plate tectonics are spreading and subduction. This idea was discovered by Alfred Wegner in order to support his idea that the earth originally had one large common continent, Pangaea, before drifting into the several continents we have today.

    Read More

  • The Butcher Shop

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    Having been bled, the pig was lowered into a large basin full of water heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Unconscious, the pig didn’t scream or move as it was lowered into the scalding water. The boiling bath loosens up the pig’s hair and nails, which are removed before the pig is butchered. After the bath, two butchers used levers to heave the pig from the water onto the “Cincinnation.” Resting on the wedge above a giant egg-beater on its side, the pig upon the Cincinnation was the most surreal part of the process. The pig spun around awkwardly and violently while the amiable foreman sprayed it with a high pressure hose causing chunks of pig hair to fly through the air. Stepping away from the jettisoning hair clumps, yet not taking our eyes off of the spinning pig, the whole room seemed to shrink as our focus did upon the pig.

    Read More

  • Gay Marriage in the 21st Century

    1789 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gay marriage has become the biggest controversy of the 21st century and has caused the biggest assumptions, quarrels, and typecast. Theories that are associated with gays show that they are very immoral, unable to shape and preserve lifelong relationships, and the relationships that are created are superficial and casual. (Bidstrup, 2009) In this great country of America we are taught that everyone must have equal rights and be treated equally; well Homosexuals aren’t allowed to without actions and consequences. Marriages have become one of the biggest issues that homosexuals are faced with and they aren’t getting the equal rights that heterosexuals are given. The fact the people aren't relaxed with the idea stems mainly from the fact that for many years, society has encouraged the idea that a marriage should involving two people of different sexual orientation. (Bidstrup, 2009) A same-sex partner is preposterous, mainly because of the objections raised above. Marriage is supposed to stand for an institution ...

    Read More

  • Benefits Of Single-Sex Education

    1493 Words  | 3 Pages

    For many different reasons, several separate schools have begun to test the effects of single sex education in public schools (Pollard). In recent years, coeducational classes were believed to be an important aspect of k-12 education environments. Even as late as the 60s and the beginning of the 70s in areas of the US, boys and girls were put into different classes each day (Po...

    Read More

More about Death at the Abattoir

Open Document