The particular use of meat throughout the novel has …show more content…
Beginning with the title “My Year of Meats” sounds like a normal title but seeing how it says “meats” makes it sound foreign which is probably all intentional to present what the book is about which is a foreign woman finding herself with a new life in America with the meat industry sponsoring “My American Wife” and overcoming her difficulties in her “year of meats”. In addition to the title the whole narrative of the book is focused on meat and the meat industry, as once again “My American Wife” is sponsored by EX-BEEF. Jane comes to where she has to write a sales pitch for the show which starts with,”Meat is the message. Each weekly half-hour episode of My American Wife! must culminate in the celebration of a featured meat, climaxing in its glorious consumption.” (pg. 8), where of course “meat” is not really referring to meat because the woman star in the show has to meet the requirements of being, “...attractive, appetizing and all-American.”(pg. 8). Within the story also, Jane travels to Colorado as part of her journey across the US for the program to get a closer look at how meat is mass-produced …show more content…
Throughout the book, there are many things that are not viewed in the picture like they should be especially with the slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse is really a hidden private place from society where violent and dehumanized practices are performed hidden from sight. The way that BEEF-EX is distributing their tainted meat is related to people's view of America which is hidden, cut up and undercover in a plastic package for the Japanese to consume without any knowledge of the immorality gone into making it. As wrong as it is, when Jane attempts to bring in non-white, non-traditional families, BEEF-EX rejects them because “they don’t want their meat to have a synergistic association with deformities. Like race. Or poverty. Or clubfeet.” (pg. 57). This informs the reader how unethical or uncultured BEEF-EX is towards other races which allow the Japanese audience to view America as the profound land or opportunity and perfection until Jane sees the poor families and is actually surprised which is caused by BEEF-EX creating a false image of a typical American household. These were only a couple examples of how Ozeki had small details hidden to only be analyzed and seen in a bigger picture like how “My American Wife!” was just portraying a false image of the “typical” American household and