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Dylan Pacheco

Mrs. Samantha Terry

Intro to Latin American Literature

March 20, 2023

From Churning Words to Churning Realizations

In the short story “The Slaughter House” by Esteban Echeverria, the imagery of the

treatment of Argentinian people culminates in a visceral portrayal of normalized barbarianism

between the Argentinians. The story is a first person telling of a nameless man who visits a

slaughter house in the town of Buenos Aires only to witness the cruel and barbaric practices done

by the people and workers at the slaughterhouse. The images visioned in the story makes the

reader come to a dreadful realization of the indifference of the characters in the story and can be

used as a parallel to the brutality of unchecked power and violence.

Echeverria’s evocative way of portraying the scenes in the story are intended to shock

and pull emotional responses out of the readers. The explicit words and imagery in the story

convey the heavy plight of both the people and the animals that are victim to a pious and corrupt

system. The recurring theme of animal abuse in the story seems to forebode the dehumanization

that was to come of people being reduced to something akin to primal scavengers such as

“Innumerable negro women who go around after offal, like vultures after carrion, spread over the

city like so many harpies ready to devour whatever they found eatable.”. Echeverria’s choice to

be so descriptive and relentless with his vocabulary evokes a powerful reaction in readers that

can help them to truly recognize the unethical treatment of the animals and how it relates to the

people in the story later on as a critical issue.

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In addition, one of the most striking features in “The Slaughter House” is the story’s

haunting and precise phrasing. Echeverria’s wording in the story breathes life into the sights,

sounds, and even smells of the slaughter house bolstering the effectiveness of each and every

sentence. The description of the slaughter house where “Forty-nine steers were stretched out

upon their skins and about two hundred people walked about the muddy, blood drenched floor.”,

provides the reader with ample information to create a distinct image that cements the sounds,

smells, and appearance of the slaughter house’s environment as a filthy and gory hell scape.

There are no discrepancies between the description of animal and human suffering in the story,

with animals and people being slaughtered in similar ways such as when a child was beheaded

and “The trunk remained immobile, perched in the fork of a pole, long streams of blood spurting

from every artery.”. This grotesque description conjures up an unforgettable portrait of the

inhumanity and ruthlessness of the slaughter house. The diction breeds a sense of hopelessness

and melancholy that shocks the reader and makes each sentence a memorable echo of the overall

message of the story.

The story also highlights the relation between unchecked political power and violence.

It is said in the story “Strange that there should be privileged stomachs and stomachs subjected to

an inviolable law and that the church should hold the key to all stomachs!”, which distinguishes

a clear correlation between the oppressive power that the church imposes onto the people

through controlling their rations of food and their barbaric behaviors. With such an oppressive

power binding the people and their growing desperation and hunger, it is only natural that they

would turn to such bestial ways of satiating the needs that were not satisfied by the powers that

they were under. “Watch the old woman hiding the fat under her breasts.”, is a perfect example
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of the lengths that people were willing to go to satisfy their need for food and shows the extent in

which that the starving will degrade themselves just to fill their stomachs.

The church, however, was not alone in the exhibition of cruel behaviors. The people in

the story were portrayed as treating each other like crabs in a bucket; constantly climbing over

others to get to where they wanted to be, but simultaneously pulling back in anyone who neared

that escape. Although, it can be inferred that this is a biproduct of their physical and political

environment, it does not detract from the sheer brutality in “… the rather sudden death of a few

heretic foreigners who committed the folly of glutting on sausages… who were departed to the

other world to pay for the sin of such abomination.”. Similar to the impunity of the church in

exempting themselves from their own laws, the people exercised their own freedom, but instead,

of violence towards those who took to satisfying their own hunger a bit more than they saw fit.

Even “Sickly old men wasted away from the lack of nutritive broth…” were not spared from the

barbarism of those around them who in their religious community, should have considered the

sickly and the old as the first to have their stomachs satisfied.

The unchecked power of the church to the people is also parallel to the owner of the

slaughter house who was able to use their authority to commit acts of violence as they pleased

while boasting a shameless indifference to the suffering of the employees and the suffering they

inflicted upon the countless animals culled there. This indifference of these workers and people

is extended even to the death of a child in one of the most grotesque lines in the story, “In its

wake the head of a child, cut clean from the trunk as if by an ax.”. This refers to the accidental

decapitation of a child in the wrangling of a cow by lasso men, who immediately resumed their

pursuit of the cow with no stated consequence or reaction to the circumstance. The power

dynamic in the slaughter house, similar to that of the church to the people, creates a desperate
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environment where violence is normalized and those in power are immune to the consequences

of their actions.

In conclusion, “The Slaughter House” is a disturbing but powerful story that forces the

reader to face distressing truths about indifference and unchecked power and violence. The

graphic imagery and diction along with the parallels to the brutality of unchecked power and

violence work in tandem to create a frightening yet memorable reading experience.

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Works Cited
Echeverría, Esteban. "The Slaughter House." The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories,

edited by Roberto González Echevarría, Oxford UP, 1997, p. 73-86.