The Meat Industry In Ruth Ozeki's My Year Of Meats
In Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel titled My Year of Meats, she utilizes protagonist Jane’s experiences filming a propagandistic television show for an American meat lobbying organization to explore social and political problems in both American and Japanese cultures and how each illuminates the other. In particular, halfway through her journey filming and discovering the structured ignorance fueling the meat industry, Jane attends a Baptist church in Harmony, Mississippi while interviewing the poor, black family of Miss Helen and Mr. Purcell Dawes as possible stars of an episode of My American Wife!. The sermon given by the Preacher that morning in Mississippi prepares the reader for Jane’s dive into researching the unpopular details of the meat industry, its mechanisms of success and the industry’s place, or lack of, within the countries, states, towns, communities, neighbors and families of the world. Throughout My Year of Meats, Jane explores the effects of the meat industry on a plethora of aspects of life including reproduction, economy, regional identity, racism, and gender roles. By telling the story of how life is all interconnected and dependent on each individual through the Preacher, Ozeki forces the reader to consider the meat industry’s place in this
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stratified view of life.
The sermon, emphasizing the need for unity and altruism amongst humans, is strategically placed in the novel to juxtapose Jane’s immediate connections between physical harm and socioeconomic disparities sustained by the meat industry. For example, just pages after the sermon, Ozeki exposes the second instance of adverse health effects caused by American meat production. The Dawes’ reveal how the only part of chicken they can afford, the necks, carries hormones that stimulate a change in Mr. Dawes’ voice register and growth of his breasts. Had systematic American racism not oppressed the Dawes family into a socioeconomic class which prohibits them from attaining the resources to afford to feed their family food other than “parts,” (Ozeki 117) of hormone permeated chicken, hormonal sicknesses would not rivet their family. Following the logic of the Preacher, the Dawes’ community, town, state and country were not fulfilling their role in helping to cure the illnesses of its members by perpetrating racial distinctions and supporting an industry which disadvantages the victims of such racial distinctions. Ozeki uses the Preacher’s sermon, which places the responsibility to maintain health on individual communities, to emphasize the structured ignorance found surrounding the meat industry. Instead of actively realizing the role the industry plays in the impairment of health across the nation and holding the industry accountable for fixing their shortcomings, the Preacher and greater society in America forces individuals to “take responsibility for their own survival,” (Jain 181) by dissociating institutions from their negative effects, be it cancer as Jain discusses or hormonal irregularities in My Year of Meats. Such a conscious manipulation of accountability by choosing to ignore the fact that the food causing widespread and grave illnesses is deliberately produced and distributed with known health hazards by the meat industry proves structured ignorance’s prevalence in America. This ignorance promotes “survivorship as a personal accomplishment” (Jain 186) as fear is mobilized around how we are personally harming ourselves instead of how we are being harmed by our communities, states and country. Misplaced familial and community responsibility for health resurfaces later in the novel as a Wal-Mart in Indiana refuses to grant the mother of a young girl permanently disabled by a Wal-Mart delivery truck time off or unemployment benefits to care for her daughter at fear of “admitting liability for the accident,” (Ozeki 133). Instead, as the Preacher proclaims, young Christina Bukowsky’s community is forced to unite to assume responsibility for her care instead of the entity which caused the calamity in the first place. Moreover, the Preacher’s sermon relies on sentimental views of the family in order to be effective. The Preacher’s assertion that family is a method of support where all participants are equally responsible for each other seems to counters Engel’s economic view of the creation of and value assigned to monogamy and family as a method “to guarantee the fidelity of the wife [and] the paternity of the children,” (Engels 737). However, the economic advantages of known parentage are carried out by creating the guise of sentimentality within the family that the Preacher describes. The economic model is similarly present in the structurally ignorant relationship between institutions and individuals. Just as the man tricks the women into monogamy for his benefit, the meat industry, among other institutions, places individuals under their control by portraying their relationship as symbiotic when, in reality, the trusting relationship allows the industry to follow its own agenda of speedy profit without concern for the true needs of nutrition and transparency of the individual. This relationship is possible as the sentimental views of family guarantee the community will take care of one another and thus the meat industry has no responsibility in fixing the adverse health effects it is creating. The sentimental façade of family, fueled by male domination, of which the Preacher and Engel both speak, is also seen throughout the novel through the immense power males have in society. As a result of male-guided societal pressures which enforce gender expectations, Akiko gives up her job and education in order to be confined from society in her apartment “learn[ing] to cook and otherwise prepare for motherhood,” (Ozeki 37) just as cows are confined in obscure living conditions from consumers to prepare for slaughter. Though the Preacher makes the idea of family and community appear to be beneficial and benevolent, Ozeki shows how this illusion creates an environment where industry and men are allowed to define rules and expectations to their advantage. Parallel structure in Jane’s recounting serves to simplify the grand and complicated world into something easier to understand.
Overall the deliberate placement of the Preacher’s sermon in My Year of Meats preceding major realizations of the horrors of the meat industry prepares the reader to understand the meat industry’s place in the world by both reinforcing and juxtaposing Jane’s experiences. Though the roles assigned to family and community by the Preacher seem inaccurate when considering how they perpetuate racism and oppression, Ozeki shows how this systematic design benefits the meat industry as it allows them to do whatever is needed for fast profit at the expense of the individual, family and
community.
stratified view of life.
The sermon, emphasizing the need for unity and altruism amongst humans, is strategically placed in the novel to juxtapose Jane’s immediate connections between physical harm and socioeconomic disparities sustained by the meat industry. For example, just pages after the sermon, Ozeki exposes the second instance of adverse health effects caused by American meat production. The Dawes’ reveal how the only part of chicken they can afford, the necks, carries hormones that stimulate a change in Mr. Dawes’ voice register and growth of his breasts. Had systematic American racism not oppressed the Dawes family into a socioeconomic class which prohibits them from attaining the resources to afford to feed their family food other than “parts,” (Ozeki 117) of hormone permeated chicken, hormonal sicknesses would not rivet their family. Following the logic of the Preacher, the Dawes’ community, town, state and country were not fulfilling their role in helping to cure the illnesses of its members by perpetrating racial distinctions and supporting an industry which disadvantages the victims of such racial distinctions. Ozeki uses the Preacher’s sermon, which places the responsibility to maintain health on individual communities, to emphasize the structured ignorance found surrounding the meat industry. Instead of actively realizing the role the industry plays in the impairment of health across the nation and holding the industry accountable for fixing their shortcomings, the Preacher and greater society in America forces individuals to “take responsibility for their own survival,” (Jain 181) by dissociating institutions from their negative effects, be it cancer as Jain discusses or hormonal irregularities in My Year of Meats. Such a conscious manipulation of accountability by choosing to ignore the fact that the food causing widespread and grave illnesses is deliberately produced and distributed with known health hazards by the meat industry proves structured ignorance’s prevalence in America. This ignorance promotes “survivorship as a personal accomplishment” (Jain 186) as fear is mobilized around how we are personally harming ourselves instead of how we are being harmed by our communities, states and country. Misplaced familial and community responsibility for health resurfaces later in the novel as a Wal-Mart in Indiana refuses to grant the mother of a young girl permanently disabled by a Wal-Mart delivery truck time off or unemployment benefits to care for her daughter at fear of “admitting liability for the accident,” (Ozeki 133). Instead, as the Preacher proclaims, young Christina Bukowsky’s community is forced to unite to assume responsibility for her care instead of the entity which caused the calamity in the first place. Moreover, the Preacher’s sermon relies on sentimental views of the family in order to be effective. The Preacher’s assertion that family is a method of support where all participants are equally responsible for each other seems to counters Engel’s economic view of the creation of and value assigned to monogamy and family as a method “to guarantee the fidelity of the wife [and] the paternity of the children,” (Engels 737). However, the economic advantages of known parentage are carried out by creating the guise of sentimentality within the family that the Preacher describes. The economic model is similarly present in the structurally ignorant relationship between institutions and individuals. Just as the man tricks the women into monogamy for his benefit, the meat industry, among other institutions, places individuals under their control by portraying their relationship as symbiotic when, in reality, the trusting relationship allows the industry to follow its own agenda of speedy profit without concern for the true needs of nutrition and transparency of the individual. This relationship is possible as the sentimental views of family guarantee the community will take care of one another and thus the meat industry has no responsibility in fixing the adverse health effects it is creating. The sentimental façade of family, fueled by male domination, of which the Preacher and Engel both speak, is also seen throughout the novel through the immense power males have in society. As a result of male-guided societal pressures which enforce gender expectations, Akiko gives up her job and education in order to be confined from society in her apartment “learn[ing] to cook and otherwise prepare for motherhood,” (Ozeki 37) just as cows are confined in obscure living conditions from consumers to prepare for slaughter. Though the Preacher makes the idea of family and community appear to be beneficial and benevolent, Ozeki shows how this illusion creates an environment where industry and men are allowed to define rules and expectations to their advantage. Parallel structure in Jane’s recounting serves to simplify the grand and complicated world into something easier to understand.
Overall the deliberate placement of the Preacher’s sermon in My Year of Meats preceding major realizations of the horrors of the meat industry prepares the reader to understand the meat industry’s place in the world by both reinforcing and juxtaposing Jane’s experiences. Though the roles assigned to family and community by the Preacher seem inaccurate when considering how they perpetuate racism and oppression, Ozeki shows how this systematic design benefits the meat industry as it allows them to do whatever is needed for fast profit at the expense of the individual, family and
community.