"Consider the Lobster," by David Foster Wallace explores the ethics of consuming animals and the disconnection that humans often have with the origins of their food. He analyzes this idea by telling the reader about the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF), an annual event held in Rockland, Maine, that celebrates the state's lobster industry and features a variety of activities and events. Wallace offers up the MLF as a prime example of the unethicality of lobster consumption as lobsters are sentient beings capable of feeling pain. However, if Wallace wants his readers to consider that it is unethical to consume lobsters, why does he include a section in his essay where he explains that lobsters might not feel pain? Throughout his essay, Wallace considers …show more content…
He uses this to help argue lobsters may not have the necessary brainpower to experience pleasure or suffering in the same way that humans do. However, he also acknowledges that lobsters have nervous systems and respond to stimuli in ways that suggest they are sensing something. He writes, “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple, and is in fact most similar to the nervous system of the grasshopper. It is decentralized with no brain. There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain (4).” Wallace makes a point that lobsters do not have an essential part of the brain which gives the sensation of pain, but he quickly disproves this by explaining that this idea is “false” and “fuzzy”(5). While Wallace is simply a journalist, he offers up immense scientific research to help build his argument, some of which can contradict himself. While he disproves one of his scientific claims, Wallace continues to explore the unethicality of killing lobsters while grappling through his theory about lobsters genuinely feeling …show more content…
The live lobsters are simply dropped into pots of boiling hot water, which does not allow them the opportunity to fight to live before they are killed. He is quick to point out that this method of killing lobsters is a lot different than the way in which most of us kill animals for food in our grocery stores. Wallace writes, “The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water…A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over”(5). The argument he makes in this section of the essay is based on his belief that lobsters do not experience pain and distress in the same way as humans do. Wallace believes that even though lobsters may be killed very quickly and easily, this does not mean they do not experience agony and suffering while this process
Regardless of the possibility that you cover the pot and dismiss, you can more often than not hear the cover rattling and thrashing as the lobster tries to push it off. Or, on the other hand, the animal's hooks scratching the sides of the pot as it flails wildly. The lobster, as it were, acts mainly as you or I would act if we were placed into bubbling water (with the noticeable exception of shouting). (2004, p. 5) Even though we as humans feel pain; no one can say to what degree do any other living species can or can not feel pain.
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
The essay I chose was “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace published in August 2004. The purpose of the essay is to point out the consideration and suffering of the lobster and more specifically, he uses the Maine Lobster Festival as an example. His introduction begins with the background and culture of the MLB. He even goes in to detail about the paid attendance of the festival, all the festivities that are held. From carnival rides to a parade and he even stated the amount of fresh caught lobsters (25,000).
Wallace also rationalizes his decision for eating lobster as well as other animals by claiming that he believes that we as humans are more morally valuable but does admit that his views are selfish. Wallace uses a descriptive writing pattern throughout the essay providing vivid details and descriptive words. Wallace paints a picture
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
In David Foster Wallace's, "Consider the Lobster", he comes at a topic of animal cruelty. Writing this article for a food magazine, Gourmet, Wallace knows the audience his is writing to is most likely not interested in thinking about the way the animals are treated before they consume them. Using a number of techniques, he gets his readers to at least just think about this topic, without trying to persuade them to quit eating meat. Wallace implies ethos using sophisticated language and pathos using imagery in an effective way to get through his readers. "Consider the Lobster” was written in a way that makes the reader feel that the author is credible.
Now, Lobsters are fancy and expensive. David tells his readers that there are several ways to cook a lobster. After, he informed us that the lobsters are alive before being boiled and also doesn't feel pain. David uses sensory details when describing the boiling of a lobster.
The author also said lobsters require no cleaning or plucking, but are relatively easy for sellers to keep alive. Wallace then begins to question if it is right for lobsters to be boiled just for human tasting pleasure. He then said his own opinion that lobsters are extremely sensitive and shouldn’t be eaten. Wallace also discusses how some people say that because lobster have no cerebral cortex-the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain, they feel no
It said that a lobster’s nervous system is quite simple and it is ill-equipped to feel pain; however, Wallace explains that the claim is “incorrect in about nine different ways”(pg60). He convinces the reader by first of all displaying the information in an easy to read and unbiased way. Wallace then explains the anatomy of a lobster and shows the reader that lobsters have a centralized nervous system. Then, he uses a mixture of logical and pathetic appeal to demonstrate that lobster’s can sense the scorching hot water, by saying “Lobsters have pain receptors sensitive to potentially damaging extremes of temperature,”(pg63). While saying that, he reports the “struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering” which occurs when the lobsters’ are in a boiling kettle, Wallace asserts that due to the lobsters’ behavior and neurological build-up show that a lobster can perceive pain, by saying that a lobster’s action show a preference to not get boiled alive, and this preference leads to the lobster suffering.
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
"Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily" (Shelley 228). Even Walton is repulsed by the creature’s
This evidence suggest the imposed notion that lobsters are unable to feel pain may have been justification to lessen the moral guilt of killing
He notes that the inferior animals seem to revel in a more contented fortune than people (Berger, 2004). This argument is agreeable in that animals live a better life than human beings. The truth that animals have no recollections from their previous activities and do not reiterate them means that they, of course, live a better life than men. For example, when considering a housefly that has a lifetime of about seven days according to most biological tests, the animal lives a more comfortable life as compared to human beings. This true because human beings have a longer life span and would suffer more by memorizing previous recollections that inflicted agony and suffering (Jacquette, 2005).
This time spent here helped to begin to develop the creature’s mind, proving he was in fact rather intelligent. The monster knew that he was different from these people, often describing them all as beautiful. He knew they would not accept him, and yet his search for belonging and family continue to surge the novel forward. While the creature is lonely and hurting, his actions slowly become malicious.
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.