Rhetorical Analysis Of Consider The Lobster

In August 2004, Gourmet Magazine published award winning novelist David Foster Wallace’s article “Consider the Lobster”. In the article, he focuses on the negative experiences he had at the Maine Lobster Festival. He later uses the opportunity to ask rhetorical questions about the morality behind cooking lobsters alive and if they feel pain while being cooked. Simply, the main question he poses is, “is it alright to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” (Wallace, 2004, p.4)

Gourmet magazine was the first monthly publication exclusively for food and wine. Many of its readers are chefs, food fanatics, or the average person looking for delicious recipes. Wallace kept this in mind when writing his article, because the shape of it reveals his acknowledgment of his audience. Gourmet magazine assigned an article to Wallace

He goes into taxonomy explaining that lobsters are crustacean due to their stalked eyes, gills on their legs, and antennae (Wallace, 2004, p. 1). He also breaks down the word lobster, and says that the word is “a corrupt form of the Latin word for locust combined with the Old English loppe, which meant spider” (Wallace, 2004, p. 1). He goes on to say that “lobsters are basically giant sea-insects”, which are “garbage men of the sea, eaters of dead stuff… and sometimes each other” (Wallace, 2004, p.1). Wallace later writes, “… in the 1800, lobster was literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized… some colonies had laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than once a week because it was thought to be cruel and unusual, like making people eat rats… now, of course, lobster is posh, a delicacy” (Wallace, 2004, p.2). By writing this he makes his audience think of what they are eating, and why it became such an elegant dish over time. His use of vivid language in this quote sparks the usage of pathos throughout the rest of the