Aastha Rai
Miss Matalone
English 101 H1
October 19, 2017
Lobster Love “Consider the Lobster” is an article written by David Foster Wallace that appeared on the magazine Gourmet which provides thought provoking information about the morality behind consuming lobster. Wallace wants his readers to literally consider the lobster as he discusses about the culinary and ethical dimensions of cooking a live creature with possible sentiment. By giving the example of a lobster, he tries to convey that many other animals such as deer are treated inhumanely for the sake of human satisfaction. Even though Wallace has no intentions of persuading his readers to become a vegetarian, the sole purpose of writing this article is to address animal
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He writes about how the lobster is raised and harvested, stored in a supe market and eventually boiled alive in a pot or a kettle. He also explains about the history of the lobster and mentions how it was a low class food, eaten only by the poor and industrialized. But now it is served as one of the greatest delicacy in a high end restaurant. According to Wallace, “the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s side or even to hook its claw over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof…you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off or the creature’s claw scarping the sides of the kettle as it trashes around.” (page 62). Here, he tries to explain how just like humans, lobster also try to escape from the heat coming while they are stuffed in a kettle with boiling hot water. They can detect the slightest changes in the degree of the water. In order to make his point, he describes about the lobster’s decentralized nervous system which cannot interpret pain even if they can feel it. The visual image of the lobster trying to escape from the heat is really disturbing which give the reader a whole new perception about animal