The Pleasures of Eating Essay -- Literary Analysis, Wendell Berry

In Wendell Berrys The Pleasures of Eating, this farmer tells eaters how their separation from food production has cancelled them into passive consumers who know nonhing about the food they eat, or their part in the agricultural serve up (3). They are blindsided by a food constancy that does not help them understand. Berry argues that the average consumer buys available food without any questions. He states consumers that think they are distanced from agriculture because they can easily buy food, making them ignorant of cruel conditions it went through to get on the shelf. Humans have become controlled by the food industry, and regard eating as just something compulsory for their survival. Berry wants this to mixture as people realize they should get an enjoyment from eating that can only come from becoming responsible for their food choices and encyclopedism more about what they eat. While describing the average consumers ignorance and the food industrys deceit, he effectivel y uses appeals to emotion, logic, and values to persuade people to take charge, and change how they think about eating.One point Berry makes about peoples ignorance is that they do not recognize their connection to the agricultural cycle. He appeals to the subscribers sense of logic when he describes the process food goes through to reach the consumer, and how eating ends it (3). He uses their sense of reason to persuade them as he continues to point out how oblivious eaters are by saying that food is pretty much an abstract idea to them even though they should realize it does not magically appear in the local store (4). Berry mentions that not only do they ignore how it gets to the store, but also the location and type of farms their food comes from (4). He says ... ...ences him in the poem by William Carlos Williams, There is nothing to eat, seek it where you will, but the body of the Lord, and this appeals to the readers value of faith and gives his leaning credibility (23).T hroughout the essay, Berry logically progresses from stating the problem of the consumers ignorance and the manipulative food industry that plays into that ignorance, to stating his solution where consumers can take part in the agricultural process and alter how they think about eating in order to take pleasure in it. He effectively uses appeals to emotion and common values to commute the reader that this is an important issue and make her realize that she needs to wake up and change what she is doing. By using appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos, Berry creates a strong argument to make his point and get people to change how they attain and eat food.