A story about killing

707: 

If you’ve ever read Jude The Obscure you might remember a chilling account of a killing - a depiction of a pig being slaughtered in the nineteenth century, not behind the closed doors of a modern abattoir, but out in the open, in a family’s backyard. It wasn’t an easy thing to do then, as it isn’t now.

            In this book, Thomas Hardy illustrates the same betrayal of the animal which is still felt today; by contrasting Arabella, the pragmatist (who was used to killing animals) with her husband, the more tender hearted Jude, who was more of an idealist. Each was aware of their dependence on the food the pig would provide or the money it would bring when sold. The scene is set:

            It was thick snow and the pig-killer was delayed and not likely to be coming after all, and the pig had to be killed that day since Jude and Arabella had, the day before, run out of barleymeal feed. Jude would have to slaughter the animal himself. The pig had been starving since the day before. Jude says to his wife Arabella “What - he has been starving?”

            “Yes. We always do it the last day or two, to save bother with the innerds. What ignorance, not to know that!”

            “That accounts for his crying so. Poor creature!”

            “Well - you must do the sticking. There’s no help for it. It must be done”.

            He went out to the sty and placed the stool in front with the knives and ropes at hand. He got into the sty and noosed the affrighted animal who, beginning with a squeak of surprise, rose to repeated cries of rage ... they hoisted the victim onto the stool, legs upward, and while Jude held him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs to keep him from struggling.

            The animal’s note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but the cry of despair; long drawn, slow and hopeless.

            “Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had this to do!” said Jude. “A creature I have fed with my own hands.”

            “Don’t be such a tender-hearted fool! There’s the sticking-knife - the one with the point. Now whatever you do, don’t stick un too deep.”

            “I’ll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it. That’s the chief thing.”

            “You must not!” she cried. “The meat must be well bled, and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that’s all. I was brought up to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least.”

“He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat may look,” said Jude determinedly. Scraping the bristles from the pig’s upturned throat, as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat; then plunged in the knife with all his might.

            “ ‘Od damn it all!” she cried, “That ever I should say it! You’ve over-stuck un! And I telling you all the time ”

            “Do be quiet, Arabella, and have a little pity on the creature.”

            ... However unworkmanlike the deed, it had been mercifully done. The blood flowed out in a torrent instead of in the trickling stream she had desired. The dying animal’s cry assumed its third and final tone, the shriek of agony;  his glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with the eloquently keen reproach of a creature recognizing at last the treachery of those who seemed his only friends.

            “It is a hateful business!” said he.

            “Pigs must be killed.” said she.