Men and Meat

Men and Meat

The author of "Carnal Knowledge"; T.C. Boyle, uses first person narrator to depict the life of the main character Jim, and his use of tone and irony make Jim a round character, he comes alive and seems like a real person with the occurring events. In this story tone and irony really depict Jim's character three main times in the story; when he first describes meat, when he first meets Alf and Alena, and when he is left on the turkey farm.

In the very beginning of the story the author's tone towards meat describes the characters true feelings towards vegetarianism. Jim didn't see meat as being anything but the "body's fuel" (267), and he was totally "unconscious of the deeper implications" (267) that are brought upon him in the story. Jim like most people, don't think about the chicken or cow that was killed while it is slowly pleasing ones appetite next to a side of vegetables. But the author felt in order to connect the reader with the main character he had to have a similarity between them, and meat was the best connection because it is something that people can relate to; even if someone is a vegetarian they know that meat is a staple food in today's society. The authors tone un-appetizingly describes meat through Jim's character to really put it into the audience's head that he is not a vegetarian and does not intend to change. For instance, the author describes the way Jim eats chicken; "I hacked away at the stippled yellow skin and pink flesh of the sanitized bird I'd wonder at the darkish bits of organ clinging to the ribs- what was that, liver? kidney? – but in the end it didn't make me any less fond of Kentucky Fried or Chicken McNuggets."(268) The authors description of veal makes Jim seem even less a vegetarian by stating that even though he saw the ads in magazines that show veal calves penned up living a life not meant to be lived by any animal, Jim still could not resist the veal scaloppini at Anna Maria's.

By using first person...

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