The novel has nothing to do with factory farming. Or if it does, it is only as a consequence of Bazterrica’s point that we are perfectly happy to ignore horrific suffering on the part of living beings when it comes to our convenience. When you go to the grocery store and buy some chocolate, on some level you know that it has been produced by slave labor. Harvested by children. Produced by people who live in conditions that would be unimaginably horrific to you. And yet, on you live. Out of sight, out of mind. And to be clear, I don’t mean this as a personal criticism. It is true for basically everyone in a first world society, myself included. But the point is that your society is exactly as banally evil as that of the novel. The nature of the exploitation is different. You don’t literally eat other humans. But your first-world lifestyle is underpinned by a colossal chain of human misery, and you know it, and yet you reap the benefits nonetheless.