ipl-logo

Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace Summary

602 Words3 Pages

Are We Really What We Eat? An Analysis of “Consider the Lobster” In David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” he argues that we as a human race should be empathetic to what we eat and close the gap between animal rights activists and gourmet food lovers in which he does so very effectively. The largest point of David’s argument is the issue of morality, this is a strategic move on his end because as human beings we are all concerned with how we are perceived by society and focus our lives and actions around the concept of conforming to societal norms. His strong stance against such large consumption of lobster pushes the reader to believe that his viewpoints are more than just about lobster. He wants the reader to understand that what is accepted by society is not what’s always morally right. …show more content…

The festival needs little to no explanation. People from numerous different areas gather to indulge in immense amounts of lobsters. While Wallace finds no issue with this part of the festivities he finds the need for concern when a cook arrives and literally boils lobsters alive in front of everyone within the audience. It’s easy to ignore because it’s only lobster, right? Wallace even says what lobsters are by definition.
“A crustacean is an aquatic arthropod of the class Crustacea, which comprises crabs, shrimp, barnacles, lobsters, and freshwater crayfish. The point is that lobsters are basically giant sea insects…not nice to look at. They’ll eat some live shellfish, certain kinds of injured fish, and sometimes one another.” (Wallace

Show More
Related

Summary Of Consider The Lobster

489 Words | 2 Pages

Foster Wallace’s article “Consider the Lobster” was published in Gourmet magazine, and is about the cruelties involved in eating lobster that many people consider elegant. Wallace starts off in this article by discussing the 56th Annual Maine Lobster Festival where over 25,000 pounds of fresh-caught lobster were eaten, and cooking competition were also available. In this article, Wallace discusses everything from how the lobster is caught, stored, and the cruel method in which these lobsters are cooked and finally consumed and also defined what lobster is by saying it’s a giant sea-insect. Furthermore, Wallace goes on to explain the history behind lobsters.

Read More

Analysis Of David Foster Wallace's Essay 'Consider The Lobster'

239 Words | 1 Pages

In David Foster Wallace’s article “Consider the Lobster,” he describes the harsh reality of lobster eating. At the site of the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker at the Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace describes in detail the brutal treatment of lobsters in order for people to seek pleasure in their appetite. Wallace’s argument is that it is not right to “boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure” (700-701). He thoroughly describes the process in which lobsters are boiled alive in order to support his argument that because lobsters have feelings too, we should not boil sentient creatures alive for our pleasure. Wallace’s argument complicates Nijhuis’ view on nature because Nijhuis makes the point that people should essentially

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Consider The Lobster

647 Words | 3 Pages

David Foster Wallace's article "Consider the Lobster" analyzes the agony that Lobsters feel when they are being bubbled invigorated to be devoured by Humans. He utilizes the lobster for instance to grow his examination, drawing out the relationship amongst people and the creatures that we devour. Wallace begins of his paper by saying the Maine Lobster Festival and its colossal horde of more than 80,000 individuals that devour more than 25,000 pounds of lobster amid the 5 days that the celebration keeps going. He begins off the paper with esteem in his tone as he depicts the Maine Lobster Festival to his perusers. After he's done lauding the celebration, Wallace uncovers

Read More

Summary Of Consider The Lobster

1143 Words | 5 Pages

He begins by talking about how to cook them making the reader hungry and want to eat lobster but then hits them with the statement “each lobster is suppose to be alive when you cook it” (3). Making the reader’s mind start to wander. He says “the animal’s claws are pegged or banded together to keep the, from tearing one another up under the stresses of captivity” (4). Also “Most of us have been at supermarkets or restaurants that feature tanks of live lobster, from which you can pick out your supper while it watches you point. This starts making the reader feel as if the lobster knows exactly what you’re about to do to it, causing a sense of sadness or guilt to the reader.

Read More

Summary Of Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace

641 Words | 3 Pages

“Consider the Lobster” Reading Response One It is time to speak about vegetables and their truth for once, and the truth is this. Plants, including vegetables suffer as well, not only lobsters, other animals, and humans. Vegetables often suffer when they are sometimes being snatched out of the ground, eaten, and cooked. Plants and lobsters may not suffer the same exact way, but that doesn’t change anything.

Read More

Analyzing The Essay 'Consider The Lobster' By David Foster Wallace

251 Words | 2 Pages

The essay I chose was “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace published in August 2004. The purpose of the essay is to point out the consideration and suffering of the lobster and more specifically, he uses the Maine Lobster Festival as an example. His introduction begins with the background and culture of the MLB. He even goes in to detail about the paid attendance of the festival, all the festivities that are held. From carnival rides to a parade and he even stated the amount of fresh caught lobsters (25,000).

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Consider The Lobster

1182 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

Omnivore's Dilemma Rhetorical Analysis Essay

1330 Words | 6 Pages

Relevance between Food and Humans with Rhetorical Analysis In the modern industrial society, being aware of what the food we eat come from is an essential step of preventing the “national eating disorder”. In Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, he identifies the humans as omnivores who eat almost everything, which has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream unhealthiness, gradually causing the severe eating disorder consequences among people. Pollan offers his opinion that throughout the process of the natural history of foods, deciding “what should we have for dinner” can stir the anxiety for people based on considering foods’ quality, taste, price, nutrition, and so on.

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace

996 Words | 4 Pages

The beginning of the essay, the tone and diction are both lighthearted and inconsequential- full of basic observations and details. As the argument progresses, the tone shifts to be much more serious, even the footnotes hold a more serious perspective and address more insightful issues. Even in the moments of sincerity, Wallace builds a place of non-threatening engagement, reassuring the audience that he is not an expert either and any decisions about the consumption of meat is an individual one. Such is evident in Footnote 14; Wallace explores the linguistic trends in naming food, then immediately identifies himself as a non-expert by restating that is is just a theory and asking about “biblio-historic reasons” that could unravel his whole

Read More

Summary Of Consider The Lobster

867 Words | 4 Pages

An essay written by David Foster Wallace titled with” Consider the Lobster” reflects his own opinion and experience in the Maine Lobster Festival. Which tells the reader to consider the lobsters and their life with their feelings. The writer is mentioning some important points of consuming lobsters and how its related to an ethical issue, methods of cooking lobsters, low class food in 1800s, how lobsters are feeling pain, how lobsters behave, and their nervous systems. So in this essay, I will clarify the main points that Wallace mentioned in “Consider the Lobster”. First of all , Wallace talking about the festival and showing that Maine Lobster festival takes place in late July yearly on the western side of Penobscot Bay (midcoast trigon).

Read More

David Wallace's Essay 'Consider The Lobster'

186 Words | 1 Pages

I thought David Wallace did a good job writing "Consider the Lobster". It was an effective essay. Before jumping to the Lobsters, he started his essay by introducing g a well-marketed Maine Lobsters Festival (MLF) which is held every late July. I like how he describe what he saw at the Festival, give g his readers a sense of what to visualize. I find if interesting that in the 1800s, lobsters was a low-class food eaten by the poor and also was a punishment for prisoners.

Read More

Summary Of David Foster Wallace's Consider The Lobster

973 Words | 4 Pages

From personal experience, I sense acidic undercurrents, a bursting bubble, and a rusted infrastructure; a western world that is growing, yet sinking. All these forms of decay make me speculate on how things got to be this way, but also what I should do in an attempt to change the tide. In David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster,” I am consistently puzzled on his concept regarding animals’ ‘right to life’ deeming some sort of equality in animal lives compared to human lives. A selection from this text that that sticks out to me and could stand alone as the main point of this text is when Wallace talks about how people would never stand around at a food festival where cows are publicly slaughtered. He says, “Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival at which part of the festivities is watching the trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something - there’s no way” (Wallace 24?).

Read More

An Analysis Of David Wallace's 'Consider The Lobster'

1736 Words | 7 Pages

Likewise, he demonstrates his discomfort about society’s acceptance of lobster’s pain and dismissal of their essence. However, in order to understand Wallace’s real intention in the essay, it is necessary to know his perspective towards modern society. By reading the Incarnation of Burned Children, it is possible to relate the society issues displayed, with considering the Lobster issues. The inability of lobsters, or the child, to communicate their pain of our careless acts is what disturbs Wallace. Therefore, he displays different examples to persuade the readers that society’s morality is corrupted and that the whole industry of boiling lobsters alive is accepted under a false premise that some animals are not deserving of protection, or are not ‘highly developed’ to feel pain.

Read More

Summary Of Consider The Lobster

688 Words | 3 Pages

Ethics can be based off of preference on this topic by acknowledging that lobsters are sentient beings and that humans should have “the willingness to exert personal agency and accept responsibility”(Wallace 6) if they partake in the practice of boiling lobsters. Another step towards a moral and ethical practice is trying to understand why humans disconnect and dissociate themselves from the similarities found in other species. It is acknowledged that the “clacking” of lobsters in a boiling pot are indications of pain, but there are prolong and complicated effort to reach this answer. This difficulty stems from the fact that lobsters are not place on the same level of importance. The author states, “I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of selfishly convenient.”

Read More

Consider The Lobster Analysis

1527 Words | 7 Pages

On page 60, footnote 8 compares the pegging/banding of lobsters’ claws to the debeaking of broiler chickens, the cropping of swines’ tails, and the dehorning of cattle. Recognizing that the reader will likely fail to see the impact of the banding, Foster Wallace provides the comparison of other similar practices that will likely be more promptly deemed unacceptable. Under footnote 14, Foster Wallace extends the comparison, driving the reader to understand the distinction made between the consumption of mammals and non-mammals that is notable in speech. When describing mammals as food, we use separate words to distinguish them as creatures and dishes, such as “cow” and “beef,” and “pig” and “pork.” However, non-mammals share the same names in the wild and on menus, such as “shrimp,” “salmon,” and “lobster.”

Read More

More about Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace Summary

Related Topics

Open Document