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David Foster Wallace's Essay 'Consider The Lobster'

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Essayist, David Foster Wallace, article “Consider the Lobster” discusses the deeper issue at hand found in the Maine Lobster Festival (2003) that attendees often overlook at or do not care; whether it is morally right to subject pain on animals because of gourmet delicacies. With this intention in mind, Wallace must wangle his point across readers of Gourmet magazine, his attended audience, in order for them to understand that the Maine Lobster Festival is not just about "the promise of sun, fun, and fine food" But a deeper issue at hand. Therefore, Wallace use of the rhetorical strategy Pathos throughout his essay creates an emotional impact on his readers; who have probably never consider the lobsters’ point of view. Consequently, allowing
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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

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Pathos is used as an appeal to emotion, often to gain an audience’s investment for a specific purpose. Animal shelter advertisements, car commercials, and even magazines use this method to attract an audience and pull them in by their heartstrings. Rebecca Skloot’s contemporary biography The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is no different, utilizing this method to maintain the audience’s attention and emotional investment in the story.

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The article “Consider the Lobster” by David Wallace opens a vivid, gruesome window, to a harsh truth that all lobster consumers push far back into the recesses of their minds. Wallace implores us to visit the controversial issue of boiling a live creature to death, for the sole purpose of our consumption. He uses a variety of literary persuasive tactics including the three rhetorical appeals Logos, Pathos and Ethos to drive home his argument to the reader. Throughout the article Wallace puts the reader on the front lines of a three-front war of convincing ethical, emotional and logical appeals.

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Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Consider the Lobster The lobster is a disgustingly beautiful creature, known for its delicate taste, menacing shell and controversy. In his essay, “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace describes the events and festivities of the Maine Lobster Festival and the history of the lobster to deliver a poignant message about the moral implications of killing and eating animals. Wallace is able to develop his position and vividly capture the audience’s attention through a strong use of humor, deliberate tonal shifts and a unique structure. David Foster Wallace, and “Consider the Lobster” in particular, are known for their footnotes- and for good reason.

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The consumption of animal meat is highly accepted in today’s society, however, the methods, in which the animals are killed are sometimes questioned for their cruelty. David Wallace, in considering the Lobster, takes the readers to the Maine Lobster Festival, where the consumption of lobsters is exploited, and the festival's attendees celebrate these acts. However, the essay goes furthermore than narrating the lobster’s festival, because through sensory details, and different techniques, he makes the readers question society’s morality. By stressing the cruelty it takes boiling lobsters alive, Wallace is capable of creating a sense of awareness in society decisions that demonstrate their corrupted morality, and how it affects directly others (like lobsters)

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“Consider the Lobster,” by David Foster Wallace, published in the August 2004 edition of Gourmet Magazine explores the morality of the consumption of lobsters through the analysis of the Maine Lobster Festival. Foster Wallace guides his readers through his exploration of the festival and general circumstances of lobster eating before evoking a sense of obligation to the creature’s well being. His gentle slide into the ‘big picture’ through his causal argument wades readers into the depths of his thoughts through the power of storytelling until they are left with no choice but to engage with their own perception of the act with skepticism. Ultimately, the passage commands readers to reexamine their own consumption of lobsters regardless of

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This illustrates how the author uses simple appeals to convey ethos and provided facts and statistics, as well as emotional appeals to support his claim. He tried to use personal examples, but referred to in the beginning of his article, “As a non-hunter, I cannot say anything about what it feels like to shoot or trap an animal” (Is Hunting Moral?). This shows that he has not had a first-hand experiment with the issue and makes the reader believe that this is misrepresentation of his

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