Megan Verrill
What would become of the meat industry without animals? The novel Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica explores a dystopian society in which all animals have been eliminated from the Earth due to disease. Instead of switching to vegetarian lifestyles, society switches to human meat in order to compensate for proteins only found in animal meat. Essentially, cannibalism becomes legalized in parts of the world. An entire industry is born that is reminiscent of the cattle industry. The novel follows Marcos, a man who manages the Municipal Slaughterhouse in his area. Humans that are cannibalized and processed are determined in several ways; mass-breeding or by volunteering after death. However, some meat is deemed to be more tasteful and tender than others. Certain meat, organs, and skins, have different values placed on them. The animal metaphors and language are used to naturalize poor people, women, and people of color (POC) as inferior beings. Tender is the Flesh highlights the role and power of language as a mechanism to justify committing violence and disqualify humans deemed as inferior.
In this world, the meat industry relies on language to desensitize people to the atrocities being committed and disqualify those being cannibalized. Everything is hidden under a loose veil, using animal metaphors to make all the actions seem less grotesque. For example, the humans being cannibalized are referred to as “head”, like they are merely cattle. The legalization of cannibalism is also called “the Transition”. The meat of humans that is consumed is called special meat, “The label read ‘Special Meat,’ but on another part of the package, Spaniel clarified that it was ‘Upper Extremity,’ strategically avoiding the word hand” (Bazterrica 35). In an essay by Sebastian Williams he explains that, “In this sense, words distance the individual from the cannibal act”. Marcos comments on this himself, trying to clear the distinction in his own thinking, “While he removes his soaked shirt, he tries to clear the persistent idea that this is what they are: humans bred as animals for consumption…His brain warns him that there are words that cover up the world. There are words that are convenient, hygienic. Legal” (Bazterrica 3). It is illegal in their world to use the precise and true wording, otherwise the illusion is broken and the system falls apart. While he knows it is wrong, Marcos must adopt more “convenient, hygienic” language in order to survive in this society. Tobin Siebers defines disqualification “as a symbolic process [that] removes individuals from the ranks of quality human beings, putting them at risk of unequal treatment, bodily harm, and death” (1487). By reducing the human beings to “head” or “special meat”, they are removed from the ranks of “quality” human beings. In fact, they are reduced to just meat, which is the basis of how their society justifies cannibalism. As language to describe what is happening is implemented, Marcos slowly accepts and becomes one committing atrocities as well, “…but there are words that strike at his brain, accumulate, cause damage. He wishes he could say atrocity, inclemency, excess, sadism…But he remains silent and smiles” (Bazterrica 13). Marcos has no choice but to remain silent and smile, but his lack of language makes him complacent in the disqualification of people. The industry relates these former human beings to animals because they have become cattle.
The industry is able to disqualify humans by reducing them to animals to deem them as inferior. Marcos makes the distinction between how animals and humans are viewed plainly, “No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity” (Bazterrica 8). Because animals do not have an “identity” in the way humans do, people feel less bad about committing atrocities against them. It is naturalized, “Disqualification is produced by naturalizing inferiority as the justification for unequal treatment, violence, and oppression (Siebers 1488). Society has such a deeply rooted belief that animals are undeserving of the same rights and respect as humans, therefore any human that a system in power wants to disqualify does so by equating them to animals. It is justified because “It is important to note that animal sentience, understood as the ability to experience emotions, is limited in extent and restricted to certain animal species” (Pulina). Like animals, the head do not have the same sentience, and are seen as undeserving of respect. Not only is the language neutral in Tender is the Flesh, but it is all based in pre-existing meat industry terminology. All the “head” are also sent to slaughterhouses or processing plants, terms that are used in the current meat industry. Head that are bred in captivity without being genetically modified are referred to as “First Generation Pure (FGP)” and branded on their forehead like animals. Anyone who challenges this view can become cattle as well, and their agency is threatened to be reduced to an animal’s. One of the butchers in the story says, “‘Today I’m the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle’” (Bazterrica 37). This emphasizes how the language is a loose veil on their world, and the lack of respect animals had when they were a part of it. By establishing animals as inferior, Bazterrica uses more animal metaphors to disqualify women, POC, and poor people.
The mistreatment of the women, or female head, through language is done by focusing on their reproductive capabilities. Women are often told their only purpose is to reproduce; become a mother, start a family. In their society, women are a critical factor and the basis of the First Generation Pure (FGP) head. They are only able to create FGP by factory-breeding the women. Marcos describes that, “On the way to the exit, they pass the barn where the impregnated females are kept. Some are in cages, others lie on tables. They have no arms or legs” (Bazterrica 22). Their extremities have been cut off so they cannot resist their fate, even if they had the capacity to think to. They are reduced to “females”. Their breasts are also referred to as “udders”, equating them to cows. Marcos is also gifted a female head as a gift. He keeps the head whom he names Jasmine in his own barn, and eventually reproduces with her illegally to replace the son he lost in childbirth. After she has given birth, Marcos kills her because “‘She had the human look of a domesticated animal’” (Bazterrica 209). This creates a cognitive dissonance in Marcos, who was so deeply entrenched in the illusion is astounding. The sterile and animalistic language gave him the ability to reproduce with a woman that had the mind of a child. This last act could be interpreted as mercy, since his wife wanted to keep Jasmine alive to produce more children. Regardless, Marcos is able to justify his impregnation and murder of Jasmine by reducing her to an animal and disqualifying her as a human being. Once she seemed too human, he could not mistreat her as easily.
The mistreatment of people of color is done through the fetishization of their skin. By reducing them to just their skin color, their society is able to slaughter and take their skin. Tanneries still operate in the novel, but they switch from animal hide to human skin. Marcos has a specific interaction that stresses the need for black skin, “‘Gringo, I need black skin.’ ‘I’m actually just negotiating to have a lot brought over from Africa, Tejo. You’re not the first to put in a request.’ ‘I’ll confirm the number of head later’” (Bazterrica 25). A sudden uptick in demand for black skin occurs because black leather is seen as fashionable again. Bazterrica specifically points out how black people are targeted and disqualified based on the color of their skin. When Marcos visits Urlet, a man who runs a game reserve (for hunting humans), he describes his trophy shelf, “They’re antique photographs of black people being hunted in Africa before the Transition. The largest and sharpest image shows a white hunter down on his knees holding a rifle, and behind him, on stakes, the heads of four black men” (Bazterrica 138). The photograph reminds the reader that this disqualification began before their society normalized it. However, the Transition simply made it legal. By reducing black people to skins or trophies, those in power are able to disqualify them as human beings.
Lastly, there is a classist disqualification that happens in their society. Those in power are the ones who perpetuate the meat industry, or legal cannibalization. At the game reserve, Urlet gives people with immense debt an opportunity to alleviate their financial troubles, “‘They are required to remain on the game reserve for one week, three days, or a few hours, depending on the amount they owe, and if the hunters aren’t able to get them and they survive the adventure, I guarantee the cancellation of all their debt’” (Bazterrica 141). Urlet has the power to just freely cancel their debt, but by reducing them to animals for hunting, people feel more justified in their killing of poor people. The classism is emphasized when Marcos’ sister buys head to raise in her home. Marcos explains that, “Domestic head are a status symbol in the city; they give a household prestige. He looks at the head more closely, and when he makes out a few sets of initials he realizes she’s an FGP” (Bazterrica 195). His sister specifically does it to achieve this status she did not have before. An everyday person such as his sister can justify their disqualification of those enslaved (head) because they do not have the language or capacity to resist. Similarly, poor people or those with debt cannot resist and lose status for not participating in the industry. The desensitizing language enables these actions in the everyday person.
The worst part is, by the end of the book, the reader becomes just as desensitized as Marcos. In an article by Sam Reader they explain that the novel “warps your brain by naturalizing the awful things it depicts, presenting them in neutral and mundane terms that slowly make them sound less awful as the book goes along”. The novel is also translated from Spanish to English, so the extent of this effect could vary in interesting ways. This novel explores how language can psychologically justify mistreatment of humans and violence and weighs who should have agency and respect. It shows the nuance of how such an industry or society disproportionately impacts animals, class, gender, and race since they naturalize them as inferior. The head are disqualified because they are inferior and lack language. Language and metaphors are the weapon those in power wield to oppress others. They disarm everyday people of the correct language to keep them complacent and to continue their evil acts.
Works Cited
Pulina, Giuseppe. “Anthropocentrism, Natural Harmony, Sentience and Animal Rights: Are We Allowed to Use Animals for Our Own Purposes?” Animals (2076-2615), vol. 13, no. 6, Mar. 2023, p. 1083. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13061083.
Reader, Sam. “How Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh Warps Your Brain With Language.” TornightFire.com, https://tornightfire.com/how-agustina-bazterricas-tender-is-the-flesh-warps-your-brain-with-language/. Accessed 8 May 2024.
Siebers, Tobin. “The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification.” Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 1486-1503
Williams, Sebastian. “Self-Consumption: Cannibalism and Viral Outbreak in Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh”, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2023, Pages 302–320, https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isab007
Sprockets and Springes 