Hunger Is The Best Spice

When need comes we will do all in our power to satisfy it. If we hunger we will eat anything without caring for the taste. In Chapter 7 we see this in a more subtle way. During the war, when trapped in Dresden as workers in a syrup factory, the American soldiers had two choices: they could eat the syrup meant for pregnant women or not eat it and pass through hunger themselves. Most workers at the factory ignored the people who needed this syrup and ate it without control. American soldiers were hungry and this food was perfect for them even if "the syrup was for pregnant women"(p.57) and that with it they might have complications during their pregnancy.

In such terrible conditions the soldiers were faced with a moral decision which they barely thought about. They would rather feed themselves that help other who would really need it. We see here Billy eating syrup knowingly of for whom it was meant for, yet he was consumed by the pleasure given to him by his body: "He thrust it into his mouth. A moment went by, and then every cell in Billy's body shook him with ravenous gratitude and applause." (p.57) They had two reasons for eating the syrup without much visible remorse. They didn't know the people and didn't care about them. Those were enemy pregnant women and the children they would have would be soldiers in a future war. If anything they were doing the future generations a favor by not allowing those unborn children to fill the ranks of an army for a future war. Since they didn't know the person they were taken the food from they had no bond with them and therefore would be guiltless of causing any damage.

There is a third reason which is the animal inside all of us. That part which we ignore when times are good and we need very little. When there is scarcity of anything we begin to only care about ourselves, forgetting about all the things our society tells us are important like caring for future generations. That is probably a program embedded deep down our subconscious which appears for us when we need it. That animalistic part is what we desperately try to eliminate since we are constantly told that it is a bad thing but that is what keeps us alive. If it weren´t for that program which is hated so much, humanity wouldn´t be here as we know it. After this chapter I began to reconsider if the values and morals we are constantly exposed to in our society were good. Could it be that we are trying to build our culture on an utopist thought that this world will never tolerate? Should we fight against what our body says to be good? Could our hunger for something distort our vision of reality?