GO HERBIES!!!

In Taylor Clark’s essay, “Meatless Like Me”, Clark writes about the “omnivores”’ typical misconceptions toward vegetarians through reflecting to his experiences and thoughts about being a vegetarian and about enduring the “look of confused horror” that “normal” omnivores give. Clark begins his essay with his funny episode of how he was first acknowledged as a vegetarian publicly to all other people around him in the scholarship luncheon when he was just 18. Ever since then, Clark became used to the “look” that most “omnivore” people give to him. However, Clark strongly asserts that vegetarians are also “normal” people who desire and yearn for delicious foods and “normal” foods by comparing to the common misunderstanding that most people have toward vegetarians: “loopy, self-satisfied health fanatic, hellbent on draining all the joy out of life.” Vegetarians refuse to eat a meat for various reasons, such as religious reasons, ethical reasons, environmental reasons, and health reasons etc. In case of Clark, he became a vegetarian for ethical reasons of treating the animals. Clark feels pity of the animals that were put to death because of human’s need. However, these diverse reasons of rejections of ingesting meat don’t make the vegetarians abnormal or strange. It is the appetite; it is the matter of preference, not a matter of right or wrong. In the middle of the essay, Clark clearly states that his purpose of the essay is not persuading the “omnivores”, but rather it is to debunk the misconceptions and misunderstandings toward vegetarians, to draw out a peace and understanding toward vegetarians from “normal omnivores”, and to build friendly relations between omnivores and herbivores. Throughout the essay, Clark uses a light and humorous tone to develop his thesis and provides adequate examples and experiences to support his thesis. Clark’s essay might not look formal and neat, but it has strong message that is expressed and conveyed overall the paper by using humors and somewhat sarcasm. Clark has reached his aim of his essay, the co-existence of omnivores and herbivores in perfect harmony without any conflicts, through whimsical and playful structures, illustrations, and descriptions of his experiences.