...be Wrong, but Consider the Lobster David Foster Wallace's essay about the morality of boiling live lobsters turns up the heat on its unsuspecting readers. His essay, "Consider the lobster" is Wallace's account of attending the Maine lobster festival that takes place every July in the states mid coast region. What starts out innocently as a quaint gastronomic field trip with his parents and girlfriend, quickly turns into a moral predicament for the readers of Gourmet Magazine and lobster lovers everywhere. While the implications of the essay are surely thought provoking, it's Wallace's "aw-shucks, I-could-be-wrong-here” (Gauld, NY Times) style that deserves the consideration. In Consider the Lobster Wallace takes an indirect approach in his writing, which proves very effective. Brendan Wolf of SFGate summarizes Wallace's style with: "The catch is that the deal he's closing has nothing to do with any forthcoming intellectual insight. In this respect, the reader is the bull and Wallace the guy with the red cape. Rather, the deal is simply for the reader to keep reading. The payoff, in other words, is the performance" And...
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...Consider the Lobster in Birmingham in Jail After reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and David Foster Wallace's “Consider the Lobster” it became evident that the two pieces had completely different audiences. “Letter From Birmingham Jail” was written during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and directly responded to “A Call for Unity.” “Consider the Lobster” had an audience consisting of foodies. By just the audience itself for which the pieces are written, it becomes clear that the levels of importance vary. Although, the two pieces differ in importance, both Wallace and King use ethos and logos to appeal to the audience. King’s essay is historically significant in that it addresses the deprivation of human rights,...
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...not know this, but Maine's central trade is not lobsters, for that precise reason, Maine is known as "vacationland" and lobsters accumulate travelers. So in the late spring of 2003, Gourmet Magazine sent the essayist David Foster Wallace to examine the ground zero of lobsters, the Maine Lobster Festival, MLF, in the heart of the mid coast area (wallace). One would envision the article would be a paean to lobsters and the exquisiteness of the Maine coast. Truth be told, Gourmet was a dream magazine for foodies and voyagers. However Wallace, a not so secluded critic and expert of savviness and talk, took the reader’s on an alternate adventure. One in which their taste buds needed to confront their consciousness. Wallace hopes to provoke self-analysis and examination of the readers’ own views on animal suffering. He does this by utilizing diverse Rhetorical devices to help engage the readers to influence them towards his contention. "Consider the...
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...“Consider the Lobster” Summary 08/26/2013 David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” examines the pain that Lobsters feel when they are being boiled alive to be consumed by Humans. He uses the lobster as an example to expand his examination, bringing out the relationship between humans and the animals that we consume. Wallace starts of his essay by mentioning the Maine Lobster Festival and its huge crowd of over 80,000 people that consume over 25,000 pounds of lobster during the 5 days that the festival lasts. He starts off the essay with admiration in his tone as he describes the Maine Lobster Festival to his readers. After he’s done praising the festival, Wallace reveals that his main intention of writing the essay was to question if killing animals is morally acceptable. He explains that Lobsters have nociceptors, invertebrate versions of the prostaglandins and major neurotransmitters that enable human beings to record pain. Lobsters, however, do not appear to be able to absorb natural opioids like endorphins and enkephalins which are what advanced nervous systems use to deal with pain. Wallace examines this information about lobsters and recognizes that lobster either suffer more than a human would because they can’t control pain as well as humans can or they simply can’t comprehend the idea of pain. Wallace sympathizes that if lobsters can’t control their pain, then humans are unnecessarily boiling and eating them, as a result, putting them through immense...
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...Although David Foster Wallace claims that he isn’t making his article Consider the Lobster an argument about morality, I believe that is his main intention. While I will admit that he does an excellent job explaining the viewpoints from both humans and lobsters, is it really necessary for him to explain the viewpoint of the lobsters? Wallace is trying to guilt us into thinking how we treat lobsters is morally wrong. Mother nature made us higher up on the food chain, so there is no need to feel guilty about something we are eating as a mechanism for survival. David Foster Wallace provides valid points regarding morality in his essay Consider the Lobster, however because it was assigned for college students to read, his argument is portrayed as unimportant and unnecessary to the audience. The whole purpose of Wallace’s essay was to make the reader think about morality and how people should put more thought into our decision making process. Although he’s asking directly whether or not we should consider the feelings of the lobster when we eat it, the bigger picture questions our ability to process all the little details when making decisions in life. The longer it takes for someone to make a decision the worst the outcome is going to be, because the thought of doubt enters your mind. So, why should we waste our time thinking about what we should or shouldn’t eat when we all have more important things to worry about? Wallace opens up his essay describing the scene of...
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...Week 4 Journal - Summarizing ENG 121 Instructor: Clinton Hale November 24th, 2014 Summarizing David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” is an in-depth 2004 article about the annual Maine Lobster Festival. The event is held every July in an area of Maine known as the mid-coast, which Wallace describes as, “…from Owl’s Head and Thomaston in the south, to Belfast in the north” (Wallace.2004). Throughout the narrative, Wallace deftly uses concrete language to bring the reader into the tents at the festival, Styrofoam plate in hand along with him. When describing the fare on offer for instance, Wallace talks about the soft drinks being “iceless and flat” and describes the coffee as “convenience store coffee”. Apart from being fairly humorous, these descriptions help the reader immerse themselves in the narrative. We’ve all had awful and overpriced meals at county fairs and so when we read Wallace’s description, we know exactly what he is talking about. Wallace’s overall take on the festival is that it is a slice of a vanishing Americana, but perhaps it is one that should be relegated to the past. Festivals like the one Wallace attended used to be much more commonplace as a way for areas of the country to celebrate regional interests which may seem unworthy of celebration in other areas. Although enjoyed and heartily endorsed by most locals Wallace says, several national groups, including PETA have been campaigning against the festival on the grounds of animal cruelty...
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...Eng-101 Date: July 07, 2015 Summary In “Consider the Lobster” David Foster Wallace points out morality of animal abuse by animal-like humans. Wallace gives example as lobster and the Maine Lobster Festival. The Maine Lobster festival cooks about 25000 thousand pounds of fresh lobsters and it’s the world’s largest lobster cooker festival. Wallace tries to convince humans that it is not right to boil live creature for humanistic pleasure. The author also thinks it is not moral or ethical behavior to. Lobsters are cooked alive; Wallace expresses his feeling about Lobster, and the pain they go through. It shows inhumanity and torture lobsters experience. However some people believe that lobsters are not humans, so they don’t feel any guilty eating lobsters. Wallace sounds so depress and he also says, “Gourmet readers should also consider moral status and suffering that animal involved.” RESPONSES David Foster Wallace’s Essay, Consider the Lobster has raised a great point. How Humans treat animals, especially in America. I really enjoyed reading this essay. Being a vegetarian I am really impressed by the author’s writing. Wallace is not telling people to become vegetarians or vegans. Many people think lobster don’t have brain so they don’t feel pain. Wallace states that “It is difficult not to sense that they're unhappy, or frightened, even if it's some rudimentary version of these feelings,” showing his knowledge of the way lobsters react to the pot of boiling water. Also he...
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...York Times five years ago: “David Foster Wallace, whose prodigiously observant, exuberantly plotted, grammatically and etymologically challenging, philosophically probing and culturally hyper-contemporary novels, stories and essays made him an heir to modern virtuosos like Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, an experimental contemporary of William T. Vollmann, Mark Leyner and Nicholson Baker and a clear influence on younger tour-de-force stylists like Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer, died on Friday at his home in Claremont, Calif. He was 46.” It’s not your conventional obituary. No, it has a literary style befitting the writer we lost on September 12, 2008. And five years after DFW’s death, we might want to pause and revisit his many stories and essays still available on the web. To mark this mournful occasion, we’ve updated and expanded our list, 30 Free Essays & Stories by David Foster Wallace on the Web, which features some timely and memorable pieces – “9/11: The View From the Midwest,” “Consider the Lobster,” and Federer as Religious Experience,” just to name just a few. Below we’ve also highlighted some of our favorite David Foster Wallace posts published over the years. Hope you enjoy visiting or revisiting this material as much as I have. David Foster Wallace’s 1994 Syllabus: How to Teach Serious Literature with Lightweight Books ‘This Is Water’: Complete Audio of David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon Graduation Speech (2005) David Foster Wallace Breaks Down Five Common...
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...In David Foster Wallace’s article, “Consider the Lobster”, he takes into account and sheds light on various topics that often lay hidden away from the surface. Wallace at first begins to talk about the Maine Lobster Festival where eating lobster is seen as a festivity and a means for celebration. At first the article seems boring and rather dry, but surprisingly Wallace actually sheds some light on a few notions concerning the lobsters further on in his article. The first unanticipated turn that Wallace makes is when he discusses what exactly the lobster is. He further discusses the habitat and natural manners of the lobsters, even comparing them to garbage men because of their diet. Although the topic leans further to the mundane side of the spectrum, Wallace is able to make the discussion interesting by providing titillating facts while also using a strong voice throughout. With a smooth transition, he was able to progress to his next provocative analysis. Wallace’s next factoid dealt with the symbolism and assumptions surrounding the idea of lobster. He further discusses how lobster is often viewed as a delicacy, but what made this topic specifically interesting was when he stated that lobster used to be viewed as peasant food....
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...The article” Consider the Lobster”, written by David Foster Wallace, describes the sensation associated with the inhumane consumption of lobster during the infamous and well known MLF, held yearly in Maine. Wallace, the journalist for the 56th Annual Main Lobster Festival, chronicles the Tourism and Lobster based festival with the excitement of concerts, pageants, parades, crate races, carnival rides and food competitions, which he believes mask the massacre. Wallace’s purpose is to intentionally stimulate readers to envision the unintentional abuse of animals. He begins by describing the festival with all its marvel and extravaganza with its tradition, communities and vastness. He brags of the festivities, including its many visitors and...
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...Whiting Writer’s Award and Lannan Literacy Award winner, David Foster Wallace, in his commence speech, “Consider the Lobster”, discusses about the inhumanity involved in eating a delicious and butter soaked piece of lobster that people consider a luxury. Wallace’s purpose is to inform the readers about the Maine Lobster Festival and question humanity. The author adopts an aggressive tone in order to show how he is bothered by how the lobster are treated and cooked. He shows the readers both sides of the controversy between animal rights activists and gourmet food lovers. He wants his readers to have an open minded flow to the ideas that he presents in his essay. Wallace uses multitude of rhetorical strategies to get his point across, including...
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...Samantha Huser Professor Eddy Writing 131 11 November 2015 Title The standards of ethics are often difficult to establish, especially when it comes to whether or not humans and animals should be allowed different rights, or whether they are completely equal. This also includes whether or not all humans should be equal. Moreover another huge concern with ethics is when an unethical action might be considered the best choice; for example it is considered unethical to use animals to do research, but in some cases this might looked past. Depending upon the benefits of the research some might be slightly ok with using the animals. Often there is controversy over whether or not humans and animals should be held to an equal level, and even more whether or not animals can feel pain just as humans. Some just like Peter Singer who Francis Fukuyama discussed in his essay, seem to believe that animals should be held to a higher power and be considered more valuable than that of humans. Fukuyama quotes from Peter Singer in his article “Human Dignity”, “the need for animal rights, since animals can experience pain and suffering as well as humans, and the downgrading of the rights of infants and elderly people who lack certain key traits, like self-awareness, that would allow them to anticipate pain. The rights of certain animals in his view, deserve greater respect than those of certain human beings” (Fukuyama 190). Overall, Singer is saying that depending upon the mental ability of...
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