‘Tender is the Flesh’ : Questioning ethics and morality in a bleak dystopian world
‘Tender Is the Flesh’, is a dystopian novel that presents a chilling vision of a world where cannibalism has become commonplace. Set in a future where animal meat has become poisonous to humans due to a virus, the novel explores the ethical and psychological ramifications of a society that has normalized, legalized, and commodified the consumption of human flesh. Marcos, an employee at a human slaughterhouse, grapples with the ethical implications of his work.
MEDIUM: ‘Tender is the Flesh’ tells the story of Marcos, a man living in a world where it is legally okay to eat humans. After a virus swept the world and made all animals too deadly to eat, the world’s governments turned to a bold idea: legalize cannibalism. Humans are treated and bred like cattle legally. Marcos works at a processing plant that produces edible human meat for consumers; he’s practically the second in command…
As the protagonist, Marcos is who we see this world through, and, ultimately, any questions of morality and ethics spawn through him. We learn of his aversion to eating meat thanks to the slaughter he witnesses daily. We learn that the virus the government has claimed is the reason for society’s turn to legalized cannibalism may be a lie made up to reduce population density. We learn that the line between what’s legal and illegal is very thin when it comes to using humans as cattle. The big questions: How was the line drawn and how quickly can it change? The fictional society we are shown obviously saw that it was okay to begin eating humans, but where does it stop?…
Ethically, eating a human is wrong, but what if it’s the last thing between you and survival? If the government makes something legal, does that change the ethicality of said thing? I don’t think Bazterrica is trying to answer all of these questions, either; rather, I think she’s attempting to provide a way for us to ask and answer these questions within ourselves. We can hope that a world such as the one in Tender is the Flesh remains complete and total fiction, but maybe it’s not a stupid idea to prepare ourselves for the worst. SOURCE
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