An Analysis of the Essay Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

The essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace, is a very well written article. About the inhumanities involved in eating that big, delicious, butter soaked piece of lobster that many people consider a delicacy. Wallace's audience is the readers of Gourmet magazine, 'foodies' if you will, who likely do not think twice about the food they are putting into their mouths. In his very educational story, he discusses everything from how the lobster is baited and harvested, how they are stored in the supermarket, and eventually the cruel ways in which the lobsters are cooked and eventually consumed.

Wallace establishes his credibility, or ethos as a writer, by doing extensive amounts of research as well as some scientific research, including the depth at which lobsters are caught in the ocean, how the lobster's 'brain' works and even stating specific details about the large well- known and highly acclaimed Maine Lobster Festival (which Wallace considers comparable to a Roman circus or a medieval torture-fest), which is a festival dedicated to everything lobster, including the highly anticipated eating of the lobster.

Logos is established by, again, the research he put into doing this essay. He displays it in a way that helps the reader to very easily understand and identify with his findings, and therefore understand his argument. For example, he very scientifically puts into words the way the lobster's body works on a cellular level, and explaining the lobster's brain chemicals, and telling the reader that, since the lobster does not have a centralized nervous system they can feel pain, but their body cannot interpret the pain. As well as explaining that the lobsters migrate with changing water temperatures, and because they have highly developed hairs covering their body, and they can sense heat very easily. The question he presents is how, if the lobster is highly sensitive to temperature, is it humane to boil them until death, just so that they can be enjoyed by the human palate.

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The author establishes his pathos by appealing to the reader's emotion, by vividly describing the actions of the lobster when they are handed their fate by a human, who is placing them into a pot of boiling water. He explains how the lobsters grab onto the side of their holding container as they are being dumped into the pot of boiling water. They clink and scratch their claws on the lid of the vat of boiling water, appearing desperate to escape. Also, he points out that some people mistakenly put the lobsters in non-saltwater, therefore smothering the lobster to death; as it's body cannot breathe in freshwater. He also describes how humans are trying to be more humane in how they kill, cook and prepare the lobster, such as stabbing them in the 'brain' with a knife, hoping to give the lobster a more merciful death. However, majority of a lobster's nerve bundles are "on the underside, from stem to stern, and disabling only the frontal ganglion does not normally result in a quick death or unconsciousness" (p 537). As well people who think that it would 'hurt' the lobster less if they would put it into cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, as their body would adjust to the temperature as it increases to the eventual 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Which, unfortunately, is not a humane way to cook the lobster either, as with this method of cooking lobster, the chef sees a "bonus set of convulsion like reactions that you don't see in regular boiling" (p 237)?

The message? Simply think about the food you are putting in your mouth, because it was, at one point in time, a living breathing creature. All Wallace asks in his essay is for people to think about what you are about to eat; before you put their flesh into your mouth. He is not trying to convince the readers to become a vegetarian, vegan or even an advocate for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). His arguments are, in my opinion, very effective. He convinced me to do more than to think about the way lobsters are prepared before eating it, he also convinced me to not want to eat lobster at all. I believe that they are very inhumanely killed/prepared. My dad is a hunter and has always butchered his kills. I grew up with eating. harvesting and killing animals as being a normal part of life. It was a necessity, a way to cheaply feed the family. Just as many states, including the gulf states who harvest shrimp and many other sea creatures to eat and even alligators to sell their skins and their meat, they do it to make a living. What's the difference between sea creatures and eating deer, pork or beef? Lobsters, as discussed above, are inhumanely prepared and killed, whereas deer, cattle and hogs are killed with a .22 in between the eyes, Mammals have a centralized nervous system, much like our own; getting shot point-blank in the head gives the animal a very quick death. Still painful, but the pain is so quick, and it is over before they knew what happened; and they typically die immediately. Wallace even states "when it comes to defending [the lobsters], even to myself, I have to acknowledge that I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, I like to eat certain kinds of animals, and would like to keep doing so" (p 540). Wallace self-discloses here, by telling his readers that while he feels sorry for the lobsters and how cruelly they are killed, he still likes to eat whatever he wants, including lobster if he so pleases.

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