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Summary Of Consider The Lobster By David Wallace

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In David Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster”, the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) is profiled. The festival takes place every year in the Western Penobscot Bay area from July 31 to August 3. The area is described as “the nerve stem of Maine’s lobster industry”. For almost the entirety of the piece Wallace takes a topical approach and assumes the reader has very little knowledge of the lobster. He goes into detail about all the different things that go on at the MLF using lengthy run on sentences. He even details the vast assortment of different lobster dishes that one could find at the festival. Wallace then goes into the origin of lobster and all that it entails. He explains how they are classified, how it has transformed from something that prisoners …show more content…

Wallace includes the methods of preparing lobster, a discussion of whether the lobsters can feel pain, and describes PETA protesters giving out pamphlets advising festival goers to not eat the food. Over the course of the article, it changes from being informational about the actual festival, to a rhetorical question about the treatment of the animals that we as humans consume. I didn’t quite know how I felt about this article when I finished reading. Although Wallace is clearly confused and uncertain about his position, with all the lengthy footnotes, he does go to great lengths to weigh both sides of the argument. (if you can even call it that) What I was left to consider was the reasoning and justification for the treatment of the animals that will become our food. The information and the questions that Wallace presents attempt to make the reader consider things they either haven’t thought about or try not to think about. I was left with the impression that he is still uncertain on the moral and ethical implications that boiling lobsters alive raises. On one hand he seems to think that it is wrong because the lobsters seem to

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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.

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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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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

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David Foster Wallace in the article, “Consider the Lobster,” argues that the way people treat lobsters is horrible. Wallace supports his argument by questioning whether lobster can feel pain, listing and describing the different ways to cook a live lobster, and telling the origin of the lobster. The author’s purpose is to inform people that the way people treat lobster is horrific in order to report about the Maine Lobster Festival. The author writes in a sarcastic and casual tone for the readers of the Harper’s Magazine and to the public. If we look at Wallace’s question in black and white

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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

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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?).

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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.

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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.”

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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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