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Animal Abuse
Yamilex Saldivar
Rhetoric and Composition 1302

Abstract
Animal abuse has become an issue all around the world. Every
animal has been abused by a human being in one way or another. As
human beings we don't seem to care about their feelings and their life, it's
meaningless we may say. Every day there is an animal somewhere
fighting for its own life. This paper is an analysis of two different genres
that focus on the same subject. One of the genres is an article which
informs the audience about a woman that kills and mutilates animals just
to make art out of it. This article is seeking justice, to stop animal abuse;
to stop her from hurting innocent beings. In the second genre there is a
video that emphasizes the feelings of the animals from the beginning to
end. Starting with rhetorical questions, and making the rhetorical
appeals such as ethos, pathos and logos very noticeable. Both of the
genres help us understand how severe the issue has become.

Once Cesar Chavez said: We need, in a special way, to work as

hard to help people understand that animals are fellow creatures, that we
must protect them and love them as we love ourselves. Animal abuse
has been going on for years, but recently it looks like it has become
something ordinary. This issue has been ignored, not only in the United
States, but also in other countries, such as The Netherlands. The
following genres that I will base my analysis on speak of Animal Abuse.
Colleen McDuling from Global Animal, Netherlands Woman Kills
Animals for Art (Global Animal, 2012), explains how an artist name
Katinka Simonse has been killing animals as a form of art. The other
genre is a YouTube video, Animal Cruelty Commercial, which the video
is emphasizing the thoughts and feelings that are going on in an animal
everyday whether the animal is a pet, a farm animal or wildlife, they all
feel terrible pain. The both genres bring the main issue of animal abuse
as a matter of fact to take action, and take in consideration of what is it
that we are going to do to stop this issue.
Audience and Purpose
The first genre, Colleen McDuling from Global Animal,
Netherlands Woman Kills Animals for Art (Global Animal, 2012), its a
web article where the artist Katinka Simonse is criticized for killing
animals just to make art. The reason of this web article was to inform
the audience concerning this issue of her way of treating innocent living
beings. Colleen McDulings intended audience is the public in general,
because its about animal abuse which is all around the world, is very
broad. This web article is pursuing the audience to take action, and put

the artist Katinka Simonse on trial for animal abuse, and its also
informing and letting us know how the animal welfare law in the
Netherlands falls short. Global Animal is trying to convince the people in
general to stop animal abuse, because we see them die, day after day, but
yet we dont do anything. This article doesnt take that long to read, it
could only take 5 minutes of somebodys time just to be well informed in
what really is happening around the world. In the second genre, Animal
Cruelty Commercial, the intended audience is all the people just like the
first genre. We all have committed cruelty against animals, in one way or
another. The purpose of the information presented in this genre was to
pursue the intended audience to stop animal abuse. We have become too
negligent. This video tries to tie the audience by highlighting the
thoughts inside of an animals mind that has been abused and has no one
to rely on. Both of the genres want the people to stand up for the animals.
They are both pursuing the audience to the same goal, of being the
animals voice.
Ethos
In the first genre, the author uses presents links, where you can
click on and will automatically send you to evidences. There are pictures
where it shows and prove the audience that what has been written is
something real that has to be taken care. We see a cat turned into a
women purse, put baby chicks through a shredder, etc. The web article
also says that the artist was interviewed and she was laughing her way
through the interview, which really shows that this artist has no respect
for the living beings. In the second genre, Animal Cruelty Commercial,

there is appearance of ethos since beginning to end of the video. The

video starts with rhetorical questions such as will I die today? (Animal
Cruelty, 2011) This questions makes the audience to open their eyes and
think the way the animals think.
Pathos
The web article author uses an emotional appeal by providing
pictures and giving us significant numbers of the animals that she has
killed only to make purses or only so called art. This emotional appeal
brings anger, confusion, and pity. Anger because the audience feel
impotent in lacking the ability to do something about this so called artist,
Katinka Simonse. It also brings confusion at the fact that how can
mutilate animals can be considered art? And lastly, this article brings pity
when its mentioned: Simonse, not wanting to pay for her sick
companion cat to be humanely euthanized by her veterinarian, decided to
take matters in to her own hands and killed the cat herself by breaking
the neck. The cat was skinned and the skin made into handbags. (Global
Anima, 2012l). The cats name was Pinkeltjie and was only 3 years old.
In the second genre, it totally brings a lot of emotions all at once from
beginning to end. The video starts with rhetorical questions and the first
question with what the video starts with is What did I do wrong?
(Animal Cruelty, 2011). This first question emphasizes all and makes the
question ask themselves What did they do wrong? The main emotions
that a person could get from watching this commercial are heartbreak,
sorrow and regret. I think regret is the emotional appeal that it is most
shown in this commercial because through this whole minute that is

playing, scenarios can start playing in your mind, such as when you
forgot to feed your dog once or, you were never the voice of the animal
when your neighbor will start beating him/her.
Logos
Every hour an animal is beaten or abused (Animal Cruelty,
2011) This statistics have shown that every hour one animal is beaten,
abused, or even death. This is a very high rate for animals to be abused.
Now, if in one day we have twenty-four hours, then that means that
twenty-four animals have been beaten, abused, and dead. If we multiply
those twenty-four animals times the number of days that we have in a
month, the total will be seven-hundred and twenty, to seven-hundred
forty-four animals that have been abused. Now, what if we multiply that
amount times three-hundred and sixty-five days in the total year? Is a
very high rate isnt it? This commercial really brings has an effectiveness
in using logos. Its an argument very logical because, you can prove the
audience of how major this problem has become.

Structure and Delivery

The structure and delivery for the article, Netherlands Woman
Kills Animals for Art, is very straight forward with the audience. The
organization is very simple. There were limitations in wanting to display
the article, because the author could not express himself freely to what he
was feeling and his thought towards Katinka Simonses actions, but
besides that it was easy to understand. However, in the commercial,

Animal Cruelty, the structure and delivery was very understandable and
precise. The video starts with the rhetorical questions such as What did
I do wrong? Why did they hurt me? and also exclaims Waiting for
someone to help. This makes the audience reflect upon their beliefs and
values as a humane individual.
Conclusion
To conclude my analysis the two genres that I have picked are
quite different, however they get the same message across: Animal
Abuse needs to be stopped. Although one was an article and the other
one a commercial both were well delivered and clear. The genre that I
believe was more effective on convincing people that animal abuse is
wrong is the commercial named Animal Cruelty. In my opinion the
commercial was more effective in giving the message because, there was
a lot of rhetorical appeals, the structure was well understood, within the
video, from beginning to end, and the music played a major role in the
video through the emotional appeals, pathos.

References
Animal Cruelty Commercial WSPA and SPCA. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctFXR7s6E6E
Dutch Artist Katinka Simonse Kills, Mutilates Animals For Art | Global Animal. (2012,
January 24). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from
http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/01/24/netherlands-woman-kills-animals-for-art/