In the American Pulitzer winner Jane Smiley’s fiction, there is often a concern about animals. One of the animal issues in her fiction is animal slaughter. In her novel A Thousand Acres and her novella Good Will, the killing of nonhuman animals is no longer taken for granted, but contains reflections on humans’ cruelty and instrumentalist attitude to nonhuman animals. On top of cruelty to animals, animal slaughter also does harm to humans. The cruel slaughter of animals is very likely to aggravate the cruelty to humans. Besides, the exposure to animal slaughter intensifies violent tendencies. Smiley objects to instrumentalist views of animals and asks for reverence for them.