Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser Essay - 1205 Words

The All-American meal takes more out of Americans to make then at first glance. Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation delves deep into the intricate workings of the fast food industry to expose mistreatment and cruelty towards workers in the business, just as Upton Sinclair had done in the early 1900’s regarding the meat packing industry. Schlosser is able to bring light to the darkness behind the All-American meal through extensive research and personal confrontations of which he has high regards for. Fast Food Nation is a good literary nonfiction book as a result of Schlosser using relevant anecdotes that allow the reader to connect with the working conditions associated with fast food, and by providing a new perspective on the topic†¦show more content†¦A quality literary nonfiction book should have relevant anecdotes that allow the reader to connect with the experience stated. For example, an anecdote should have emotion tied into it that sets up the reade r for the next idea, but if the anecdote is about one thing and nowhere in the book does the author go back to the anecdote, then it is irrelevant and becomes an obstacle for the mind and its understanding of the argument that has been discussed. Schlosser was able to partially satisfy the criteria that a nonfiction book should include relevant anecdotes that help the reader connect to the fast food industry that causes health risks for its workers. He started the book off with chapter one solely on the relationship of Ray Croc, the owner of McDonalds, and Walt Disney. However, he was unable to incorporate the importance of the relationship into his overall claim regarding the disregard of workers and consumers health by the fast food companies. After he finished with the overly drawn out anecdote, he began to provide relevant anecdotes from actual workers in different jobs associated with the business. First he started with Elisa, a sixteen year old McDonald’s employee that wakes up at 5:15 every morning and spends seven hours behind the counter on her feet, and when she gets home her feet hurt. (pg. 68) He uses Elisa’s anecdote wisely since his readers can easily connect with her storyShow MoreRelatedFast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser957 Words   |  4 PagesFast Food Nation Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser was overall an alarmingly convincing tale. Schlosser’s ability to subtly drop facts regarding the negative aspects of the fast food industry that so profoundly swayed the reader wa extremely effective. Schlosser did not come out and state his opinion bluntly at any time throughout the novel. Instead, he would incorporate the right facts here and there to persuade the reader to feel the same way about the fast food industry that he felt: negativelyRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1678 Words   |  7 Pagestougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power (Schlosser). People must wonder how is it that a fast food company has so much customers. Advertising is the answer. The power advertisers have to be able to influence so many people s decisions and affect people’s lives especially the lives of young children is incredible. Adver tisers know just who to target and they research how too. In Eric Schlosser’sRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser865 Words   |  4 Pagesspent on food to support a family. In the book Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser he talks about how fast food affects American Society. He talks about how much money is spent on fast food, which is $110 billion dollars. Eric Schlosser says that many Americans spend more money on fast food then they do on cars and education. He mentions many food companies such as McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and how it can be â€Å"the world’s largest provider of death care services†.(Schlosser 5) In Fast Food NationRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1253 Words   |  6 Pagesand shipping ports. Cattle and other livestock arrived by railroad. After the animals were slaughtered, they would be shipped to meat counters around the country and overseas. In his book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about the changes in the meatpacking industry. Among those changes, Schlosser explains, Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) changed the entire meatpacking industry by turning the business of slaughtering animals into an assembly line. Meatpacking no longer requires skilled workersRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1596 Words   |  7 Pagesconsumerism and big business. Companies selling cheap food and cheap goods are scattered across the nation in every state and town. This is Eric Schlosser’s main topic in his novel Fast Food Nation. From telling the start of the first fast food restaurants in America, to explaining how the food is made, Schlosser s covers the whole history of the world wide food phenomenon. Eric Schlosser is an American journalist and Author of Fast Food Nation. He was born in Manhattan, New York, but grew up inRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser848 Words   |  4 PagesLAST THREE DECADES, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society†, Schlosser writes. Fast Food Nation, written by Eric Schlosser, includes topics about fast food chains impact on the community, jobs relating to fast food, and health issues. Fast Food Nation uses logic to appeal to the aspects of fast food chains by giving relatable examples from the devastating effects on the communities to the millions of jobs offered for our country. Moreover, fast food chains have contributedRead MoreFast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser Essay1928 Words   |  8 Pagesmost shocking books of the generation is Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The novel includes two sections, The American Way and Meat and Potatoes,† that aid him in describing the history and people wh o have helped shape up the basics of the â€Å"McWorld.† Fast Food Nation jumps into action at the beginning of the novel with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher and the McDonald’s brothers. He explores their roles as â€Å"Gods† of the fast-food industry. Schlosser then visits Colorado Springs and investigatesRead MoreAnalysis of Eric Schlosser ´s Fast Food Nation811 Words   |  3 PagesEric Schlosser’s novel Fast Food Nation provides a deep insight into the systematic and unified world of the fast food industry. From the title alone, readers develop a clear sense of the author’s intention for writing this book. Schlosser’s purpose for writing the novel is to raise awareness about the impact and consequences of fast food industries on society. The purpose of the novel is achieved by the author’s use of personal stories, and by relating fast food to various aspects of society. Read MoreThe Slaughterhouse By Upton Sinclair And Fast F ood Nation By Eric Schlosser1015 Words   |  5 PagesHowever, not all industries have had significant advancements in today s modern world. For example, the food industry has been lacking in the basic necessities needed to sustain a safe, humane work environment, especially in the meat industry. Excerpts from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser elaborately explain the horrible environments inside the factory. Schlosser mainly addresses how unfit the conditions are for the workers, while Sinclair informs the reader of howRead MoreReview Of Stephen King And Fast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1334 Words   |  6 Pagesreading included On Writing by Stephen King and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, both of these novels were very different and taught us different things.   One Writing gave us tips on how to be a good writer and different techniques King uses in his works while also being fun to read and really well written. Fast Food Nation was a very interesting, thought provoking book that spoke about the relevant and controversial topic of meat production in fast food restaurants. Both works are very relevant in

This Anthropological Study Conducted By Nancy Scheper-Hughes

This anthropological study conducted by Nancy Scheper-Hughes depicts the difficult lives of women and their newborns in Alto Do Cruzeiro; a small shantytown in Bom Jesus, Brazil. The problem outlined by the author is the high mortality rate of newborns and their affect on the mothers and the entire social construct. The author indicates a few factors and underlying influences that contribute to this problem, such as: poverty, access to clean drinking water, church, medical, government and economic exploitation. As a result, mothers have developed no sense of feeling when the death of their child has occurred. The mortality rate is so high, roughly one million children in Brazil under the age of five die every year, and many women barely†¦show more content†¦Doctors at the best have told mothers to obtain a health â€Å"tonic† and free vitamins at the municipal chambers. Deaths are so prevalent that registration for a child’s death is simple, quick and requires no documentation. From the registry office, the mayor will give them a voucher for a free baby coffin! One aspect, you may believe that would never change, but has, is the church. Bells are no longer chimed, and no baptisms or ceremonies are performed for dying children. The author states that how can an individual not acknowledge that the bells are ringing continuously, nevertheless the women of Alto have grown accustomed to the bells and do not pay any attention to it. By the time the author published her findings, political changes had been made in Brazil and consequently amelioration of health for the mothers and infants. Mothers have a new attitude so that they do not give up on offspring who in the past would have been deemed to die. Also they have fewer babies. They no longer have to suppress their feelings with festivals, dancing and believing it is a waste of their life to mourn the death of their children. However, there has been an increase of gangs and drug violence, which have become a major problem in the survival and the social lives of the people in Bom Jesus. Nancy Scheper-Hughes excellently presented how certain external forces can alter the perception of how an individual sees and feels about the world. My previous assumption about the worldShow MoreRelatedNancy Scheper-Hughes and the Question of Ethical Fieldwork Essay1967 Words   |  8 PagesIn 1974, Nancy Scheper-Hughes traveled to a village in rural Ireland which she later nicknamed â€Å"Ballybran† (Scheper-Hughes 2000-128)). Her findings there led her to publish Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland in 1979, in which she attempted to explain the social causes of Ireland’s surprisingly high rates of schizophrenia (Scheper-Hughes 2000:128). Saints was met with a backlash of criticism from both the anthropological community and the villagers who had servedRead MoreHow Body Commodification Through An Anthropological Lens Essay3376 Words   |  14 PagesHow to Analyze Body Commodification through an Anthropological Lens Iran is the â€Å"only country with a regulated market and state-sponsored system of financial remuneration for kidney transplantation† (Potter 2015:11.1). I will be using Iran as a basis to study a regulated market and identify aspects of this state-sponsored program which address the question, is Iran supporting an oppressive system that preys upon the poor or is it an equitable arrangement that enables two people in need to fulfill

How to Improve Services Free Essays

Jonathan Swift’s poem, The Lady’s Dressing Room, is a comic satire that seeks to show readers the inescapable humanity – and its flaws and gory ugliness – that women have to live with no matter how hard they try to make themselves appear immaculately beautiful on the outside. It could be read as a criticism of the extreme efforts women do to make themselves beautiful, and as a criticism of the beholder, the man, who is enamored by the physical beauty only to realize the imperfections being hidden underneath that flawless exterior in the lady’s dressing room. The dressing room is where the transformation takes place – this is where the lady goes in simple and when she comes out she is a radiant beauty and men cannot help themselves. We will write a custom essay sample on How to Improve Services or any similar topic only for you Order Now That is what the poem implies that is why the poem begins with a man, Strephon, who is enamored by Celia who takes at least five hours to prepare herself, sneaking in the dressing room to find out why, and discovers the horrors that goes on not only inside the room but also with his beloved Celia’s body beneath those laces and brocades. He discovers: first a dirty Smock appear’d, Beneath the Arm-pits well besmear’d. Strephon, the Rogue, display’d it wide, And turn’d it round on every Side. On such a Point few Words are best, And Strephon bids us guess the rest; But swears how damnably the Men lie, In calling Celia sweet and cleanly. That in fact, Celia is not as perfect as she seems – her clothes have perspiration and bad smell on them. hat follows next is a series of finding other items Celia uses to prepare herself – combs with dirt, dandruff and sweat, a piece of cloth with oil used to cover wrinkles, gloves made from Celia’s dog’s skin when it died, and various little jars filled with pomade, paint, ointments, all these used to cover her imperfections. Strephon even finds the discarded stockings that reveal stinking toes. No wonder that at the end of the poem, Strephon could no longer look straight at any woman, for his imagination always conjures the image s he saw in the dressing room and saw their stinks, their flaws that they try so hard to hide. The narrator of the poem says that this is vengeance for his peeping, for if Strephon did no such thing then he could still be blessed when he sees beautiful women without knowing â€Å"such gaudy Tulips rais’d from Dung†. Hence this is the curse of the lady’s dressing room, that it took the magic and wonder for the beholder and made him see the woman as the imperfect creature masquerading to be a work of art. However, the dressing room is also a curse for Celia and all women, as it is the chamber where they feed their obsession to make themselves beautiful for men. In the poem the narrator mentioned â€Å"Celia’s magnifying Glass†, which is simply a mirror, but in this mirror everything was enlarged, that it can †¦to Sight disclose, The smallest Worm in Celia’s Nose, And faithfully direct her Nail To squeeze it out from Head to Tail; For catch it nicely by the Head, It must come out alive or dead. — that it makes her so insecure to make her spend time to look for even the minutest flaws that no one would see anyway. The woman spends a minimum of five hours (perhaps an exaggerated figure, but the point is that women spend a large amount of time preening) and fails to see that real beauty comes from within, not on what is reflected by a piece of glass. The poem shows the readers an image of the preparation taken to make one look good outside but in so doing shows that perhaps it is nature’s way that makes it so difficult – that we should learn to appreciate each other and ourselves, flaws included, for we all have them. This is not to say to forgo hygiene, but merely to examine what activities we spend time on. The curse of the dressing room is that it makes us believe in the illusion that media sells us: the dream of that perfect skin, that Barbie body, that photoshopped face, that if we make up ourselves as long as we need to we can transcend our human bodies’ flaws. But we cannot, because all these are parts of what makes us who we are. How to cite How to Improve Services, Papers

Analysis A Look behind the Veil free essay sample

Middle-Eastern and North African clothing culture is distinguished from other cultures by the veil, a clothing that provokes many reactions from authors and debates between the Western and Eastern people. Subject: The main topic of this text is the veil in North African and Middle-Eastern regions. Western people and Middle-Eastern people do not share the same opinion about its use, while the occidental region considers it as a simple cloth, sometimes it is even considered as humiliating, the Middle-Eastern region gives an important value to it due to its religious and historical significance. Many authors from different countries debated about the pros and cons of wearing the veil. Audience: The primary audience is the people who don’t have much knowledge about the Middle Eastern culture. The secondary audience is the radical and extremist Muslims. Purpose: The authors’ purpose is to give an explanation about the â€Å"hijab†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s value in the North African and Middle Eastern culture. The authors list many reasons behind the cause of wearing a veil by giving examples and justifications. The writers have a wide knowledge regarding this topic since they used to live in the Middle East region (in the 21st paragraph: â€Å"In the Iraqi village where we lived from 1956 to 1958 â€Å"). In addition to that, these authors are considered as the pioneers in the Middle Eastern field to inform the Western people about the importance of wearing the veil. Also, they wanted to inform the audience that the veil is not necessarily related to the religion. Design: This text contains both short and long paragraphs in order to make the text more fluent and smooth to read, also, it gives variation in the text. Short paragraphs are used to describe words or concepts while long paragraphs are used to narrate historical events or actual situations. The authors use italic font when they make use of words from different languages, such as ‘hijab’ (Arabic origin) or ‘pueblo’ (a Spanish word, Latin origin). Since the main topic is the veil, many Arabic words are used; hence, definitions of these words are given between brackets (paragraph 5, hijab is defined as a curtain). Finally, there is a picture attached to the text which is helpful to get an image of the veil to the audience. Strategy: This text uses both description and cause effect strategy; the authors describe many words along the text by putting the word’s etymology and the context in which it is used. Also, they describe many historical situations related to the veil, whether it is religious (paragraph 6) or political (paragraph 15). In addition to that, the cause effect is used to explain how historical situations and social contexts evolved along the past decades; this strategy is mainly used to explain how the use of hijab (cause) had a big impact on many countries regarding the social, religious and daily habits of life aspects. Values: In the text â€Å"A Look Behind the Veil†, the author refers to the North Africa and Middle East values. As in any culture, clothing plays an important role; however, a special cloth in the Arab and Phoenician society provoked many reactions in the Western region: the veil. The Western’s region’s attitude is against coexistence and tolerance values when reacting against the veil. Despite the small size of the veil, also called ‘hijab’ in Arabic, its importance is big enough to create many debates about the values it represents. Depending on the mentality and way of seeing things, hijab’s values are different for the different societies. According to some people, the primary value of wearing the veil is the religious value. In Islam, the verse that penalizes the barrier between both genders is the Sura of the â€Å"hijab† (veil in Arabic); it claims the importance of the veil and its utility. On the other side, some historians think that the veil’s most important significance resides in the social value, specifically in the historical context in which the veil divided female’s society between honorable wives and slaves by creating a controversial situation for the respectable households wearing the hijab, making them deprived of freedom and socially higher. Concerning the social context, honor and respect are two significant values that the ‘hijab’ represents. By wearing the hijab, a woman is less likely to be attractive to men and being approached by them, she creates a ‘barrier’ that implements respect between her and another person, by consequent, she preserves her sexual chastity and keeps the family’s honor intact. This is an important detail in the Middle East culture; honor is more a group matter than an individual matter, and in this case, honor’s family is related to women’s sexual abstinence before marriage; in case the honor is lost, it can’t be regained. Another aspect of the veil is the identity value, many women from different countries affirmed they feel that the veil is part of them; it is so important for them that â€Å"many women [†¦] feel self-conscious, vulnerable, and even naked when they first walked on a public street without the veil [†¦] as if they were making a display of themselves† – paragraph 22 Despite all the values that the hijab is representing in different countries of the world, the only value that is demanded is the egalitarianism and justice value, whether a woman is wearing the veil or not, they are â€Å"calling for equal access to divorce, child custody, and inheritance; equal opportunities for education and employment; and abolition of female circumcision,†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ – paragraph 26 Attitude: The authors express different aspects of why veils are undesirable in many western countries. For every aspect of why veils are undesirable, the authors introduce some critical reasons for why putting on veils should be considered as a normal act . Putting on veils is described by the authors as a traditional aspect of the Middle-Eastern area and also as an honor for both the woman and her own family. It appears from the text that the authors partially support the idea of wearing the veil, and instead of considering women feminism as to remove the ‘hijab’, the authors state that putting on the veil shows power for men and wealth and high status for women. Although the writers support putting on the veil partially, at the end they describe it as a complex reality, by other means; many Unreligious or even non-Muslim women are forced to wear veils in some regions. The overall attitude of the authors is considered to be diverse, the authors portray many ideas and provide a deep explanation for each idea . Not only the writers used brief explanations to support each of their claims, but also used historical as evidential support. The writers conclude that they are neither against nor with putting on veils, but they support creating equality between men and women in terms of civil and financial rights. There might be an advantage in this diversity as to show that the author is not biased on one side of the argument, at the same time it shows ambiguity in the authors’ main opinion. Beliefs: According to the authors, the veil itself isn’t just a garment worn because it should be worn in Islam , it symbolizes that the woman wearing it is caring about her Islamic religion and her Middle-Eastern culture, however, it doesn’t mean that any women that is not wearing it isn’t caring about her Islamic or Middle-Eastern origins. The authors’ beliefs are shown when narrating the Muslim prophet’s story with his wives, it states that the veil guards the women’s honor and preserves her beauty for her future husband and family. The authors also quoted an Egyptian anthropologist, Nadia Abu Zahra, in order to reflect their beliefs in another author’s words: â€Å"expresses mens status, power, wealth and manliness. It also helps preserve mens image of virility and masculinity, but men do not admit this; on the contrary they claim that one of the purpose of the veil is to guard womens honor – paragraph 8. â€Å" While Western people consider that the veil is just a piece of cloth worn over the head because it’s a part of traditions or habits that our ancestors used to do, the authors believe that it is a disciplined concept in the Middle-East and in Islam that proves a point and protects the women from any male strangers. Also, occidental people believe that it is just a mans way to be more dominating, however, the authors believe that women in Islam wear the veil because they are convinced that it should be worn for many good reasons, also, the Western people believes that it is a way to identify a women or to make a difference between women and men while the authors believe that Islam is a religion of peace that prevents and forbids any kind of sexism or racism.