ipl-logo

Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace Analysis

1055 Words5 Pages

"Consider the Lobster," by David Foster Wallace explores the ethics of consuming animals and the disconnection that humans often have with the origins of their food. He analyzes this idea by telling the reader about the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF), an annual event held in Rockland, Maine, that celebrates the state's lobster industry and features a variety of activities and events. Wallace offers up the MLF as a prime example of the unethicality of lobster consumption as lobsters are sentient beings capable of feeling pain. However, if Wallace wants his readers to consider that it is unethical to consume lobsters, why does he include a section in his essay where he explains that lobsters might not feel pain?
Throughout his essay, Wallace considers …show more content…

He uses this to help argue lobsters may not have the necessary brainpower to experience pleasure or suffering in the same way that humans do. However, he also acknowledges that lobsters have nervous systems and respond to stimuli in ways that suggest they are sensing something. He writes, “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple, and is in fact most similar to the nervous system of the grasshopper. It is decentralized with no brain. There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain (4).” Wallace makes a point that lobsters do not have an essential part of the brain which gives the sensation of pain, but he quickly disproves this by explaining that this idea is “false” and “fuzzy”(5). While Wallace is simply a journalist, he offers up immense scientific research to help build his argument, some of which can contradict himself. While he disproves one of his scientific claims, Wallace continues to explore the unethicality of killing lobsters while grappling through his theory about lobsters genuinely feeling …show more content…

The live lobsters are simply dropped into pots of boiling hot water, which does not allow them the opportunity to fight to live before they are killed. He is quick to point out that this method of killing lobsters is a lot different than the way in which most of us kill animals for food in our grocery stores. Wallace writes, “The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water…A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over”(5). The argument he makes in this section of the essay is based on his belief that lobsters do not experience pain and distress in the same way as humans do. Wallace believes that even though lobsters may be killed very quickly and easily, this does not mean they do not experience agony and suffering while this process

Show More
Related
489 Words | 2 Pages

The author also said lobsters require no cleaning or plucking, but are relatively easy for sellers to keep alive. Wallace then begins to question if it is right for lobsters to be boiled just for human tasting pleasure. He then said his own opinion that lobsters are extremely sensitive and shouldn’t be eaten. Wallace also discusses how some people say that because lobster have no cerebral cortex-the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain, they feel no

Read More
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
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
641 Words | 3 Pages

In the text, “Consider the Lobster,” by David Foster Wallace, he argues that “animals suffering is just not complex, but it is also uncomfortable” (466). Wallace is basically trying to get his point and opinion across to readers, but as we all know everyone may not agree with him. By lobsters not being humans, some people may think that

Read More
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
507 Words | 3 Pages

Regardless of the possibility that you cover the pot and dismiss, you can more often than not hear the cover rattling and thrashing as the lobster tries to push it off. Or, on the other hand, the animal's hooks scratching the sides of the pot as it flails wildly. The lobster, as it were, acts mainly as you or I would act if we were placed into bubbling water (with the noticeable exception of shouting). (2004, p. 5) Even though we as humans feel pain; no one can say to what degree do any other living species can or can not feel pain.

Read More
240 Words | 1 Pages

Wallace also rationalizes his decision for eating lobster as well as other animals by claiming that he believes that we as humans are more morally valuable but does admit that his views are selfish. Wallace uses a descriptive writing pattern throughout the essay providing vivid details and descriptive words. Wallace paints a picture

Read More
186 Words | 1 Pages

Now, Lobsters are fancy and expensive. David tells his readers that there are several ways to cook a lobster. After, he informed us that the lobsters are alive before being boiled and also doesn't feel pain. David uses sensory details when describing the boiling of a lobster.

Read More
731 Words | 3 Pages

Also he says “even if it 's some rudimentary version of these feelings and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it?” showing that we shouldn’t base whether or not we should treat them better based on what the pain level they feel. No matter what pain level is felt, from high to low, we should change what we are doing to accommodate the lobster. Through his prior knowledge and what he knew before, David Foster Wallace proves his point that lobsters do need to be treated better than they are at the moment. Using multitude of rhetorical strategies, David Foster Wallace proves that the way we treat animals is inhumane.

Read More
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
688 Words | 3 Pages

This evidence suggest the imposed notion that lobsters are unable to feel pain may have been justification to lessen the moral guilt of killing

Read More
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
672 Words | 3 Pages

This time spent here helped to begin to develop the creature’s mind, proving he was in fact rather intelligent. The monster knew that he was different from these people, often describing them all as beautiful. He knew they would not accept him, and yet his search for belonging and family continue to surge the novel forward. While the creature is lonely and hurting, his actions slowly become malicious.

Read More
1135 Words | 5 Pages

"Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily" (Shelley 228). Even Walton is repulsed by the creature’s

Read More
1760 Words | 8 Pages

He notes that the inferior animals seem to revel in a more contented fortune than people (Berger, 2004). This argument is agreeable in that animals live a better life than human beings. The truth that animals have no recollections from their previous activities and do not reiterate them means that they, of course, live a better life than men. For example, when considering a housefly that has a lifetime of about seven days according to most biological tests, the animal lives a more comfortable life as compared to human beings. This true because human beings have a longer life span and would suffer more by memorizing previous recollections that inflicted agony and suffering (Jacquette, 2005).

Read More

More about Consider The Lobster By David Foster Wallace Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document