Analysis Of Consider The Lobster

He writes: “The lobster will sometimes cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof.” This imagery uses a simile that horrifies the readers because it lets the readers feel like that they are the lobsters, and they are being cooked. Wallace uses this sentence to place the readers in the lobsters’ position and let them experience the pain. Later on, Wallace also says: “the lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water.” By making the connection between lobsters and human, Wallace knows that this would change people’s opinion towards cooking lobsters. Connecting lobsters’ death to humans’ is an effective way of using pathos to make people think whether eating lobsters is an appropriate matter. This shows how human preferences leads to lobsters’ suffering. Wallace not only uses pathos to make the readers think whether eating lobster is the right thing to do but also uses ethos to make him more credible and thus readers will listen to his

In his article “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace uses the Maine Lobster Festival as a medium for his argument regarding the ethics of eating lobster. Wallace frames his article as a conversation just to get people thinking, but a deeper look at his rhetoric shows that he is arguing against the inhumanities of eating lobster, while doing everything he can to avoid sounding like he is taking a stance.

Everyone has an opinion when it comes to animals being killed and eaten. If a person agrees or not is completely their own opinion and will not be the focus of the essay. David Wallace’s essay “ Consider the Lobster,” is used to address perspectives of varying opinions while trying to persuade the reader. The author accomplishes this throughout the essay through the excellent use of multiple rhetorical techniques. Rhetorical devices such as ethos, lothos and pathos are all used in the essay to convey the author's opinion and try to convince the reader to choose a side.

Ideas that are powerful effectively influence and evoke cognition of the audience, hence composers aim to present powerful ideas in their documentary. Blackfish is a documentary which concerns the captivity of Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld involved in the deaths of three individuals, and the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. In the documentary "Blackfish" composed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, the idea of animal cruelty is explored. Through various documentary and cinematic techniques and emotional appeals, Blackfish exemplifies their argument and engages its audience in the discussion of the Marine Park industry and the effect of animal conservation.

Wallace establishes a humorous tone in the first section to convey his argument. “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’” (233) This anecdote introduces the fact the many people don’t understand what is going on around them and why Wallace believes it is important to be conscious of what is happening around you. “This is not a matter of virtue- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.” (233) Wallace argues that it is hard to get into a state of awareness because humans have their “hard-wired default-setting”. People need to get out of their own self-centered habits and see things in a different point of view. By using a humorous tone, Wallace can effectively get people on his side of the argument.

This is after he just gets done about talking about his own thoughts on the lobsters and how it is alright if people keep eating it. Now if he is fine with people eating lobsters and wants to keep eating animals on his own time why does he spend time writing this entire essay? This essay is filled with so many sensory details that the reader can feel such as the noise of the scuttling against the boiling pot with the lobster in it. He does this on purpose to bring to light something you may not think about or brush off as nothing is actually going against your morals.

It is usually a challenge to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. Ordinarily, one has to consider one’s values as well as preferred consequences in order to make the better or best choice. In the short story, “What of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?” by Etgar Keret, Sergei Goralick faced a similar conundrum. As an aloof Russian expatriate fisherman in Jaffa, Israel, his only company is a magic three wish-granting fish. But having impulsively murdered Yonatan, Goralick had to decide whether to use his last wish to save the boy or keep his magic goldfish companion. Though he would have preferred the latter, Goralick made the better choice saving Yonatan as it matches his established humaneness and the consequences attached were more reasonable.

According to Scruton, “Eating animals has become a test case for moral theory in Western societies,” and he believes that a moral life is set on three pillars: virtue, duty, value piety. Foer uses fishes and dogs, for example, in Eating Animals: people slam gaffs into fish, but no one in their right mind would do such a thing to a dog. Foer also mentions that fish are out there in the water doing what fish do, and dogs are with us. Dogs are our companions, and with that, we care about the things that are near and dear to us. In, “Consider the Lobster,” Wallace asks, “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” Is it a personal choice to do so? PETA, of course, says no. Dick from the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) argues that lobsters do not have the part of the brain that receives pain, which is a false statement anyhow. Goodrich (1969) says that a human’s life is worth so much more than an animal’s life. No matter how many animals there are, one human life is worth more.

In the essay “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace communicates his experience in the Main Lobster Festival as a writer for a food magazine called “Gourmet”. In this essay, he explores the impact the festival had on him as he tries to question the morals of eating lobsters. Wallace initially makes it seem as the festival is a place of fun and celebration as he describes the entertainment: concerts, carnival rides, lobster-themed food, lobster-themed clothes, and lobster-themed toys (50). In spite of that, he changes his attitude as he observes that the festival is actually promoting cruelty to animals and holds a long discussion whether or not lobsters can actually feel pain. Through the use of his language and description, Wallace convinces the audience as he claims to persuade the reader to stop eating lobsters, but he doesn’t explicitly say so at any point in the essay.

Wallace begins “Consider the Lobster” by telling the reader about the Maine Lobster Festival, which hosted over 80,000 people in 2003 and served over 25,000 pounds of lobster. He moves on to give a basic scientific description of the lobster and the history of lobster as food. Wallace then gives his firsthand account of attending the Maine Lobster Festival. He then goes into the preparation and cooking of lobster and. He finishes his piece by exploring the question of lobsters’ feelings of pain and how

The passage above by Foster Wallace uses detailed and graphic language to shape the image of afflicted lobsters boiling in water. “The lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides”. “You can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push if off.” The “showing instead of telling” descriptions allow the readers to feel the pain of being boiled alive. I can imagine myself being trapped in a pot of boiling water, trying every possible way to escape the torment. The realistic descriptions allow the author to connect and imagine the situation. As a result, it serves as an exceptional pathos evidence to support Wallace’s overall argument of whether it is moral to eat lobsters, an aquatic arthropod, which

Wallace’s use of changing viewpoints adds to what he originally wants to do, which is to give the reader a chance to pick which side of the argument they want to be on. The author not only gives the reader different views, but he also changes his tone throughout the piece. By adding dynamic shifts in his writing, he includes the reader and gives a better feel for what this article is really about. This sentence stands out due to the fact that Wallace talks about the positive aspects of what occurs during the festival throughout the beginning of the article. This includes not only the amount of lobster that is being

The gluttonous lords of the land capture those who are unable to defend themselves, boil the captives alive, and then feast on their flesh. Could this be the plot of some new summer blockbuster? It could be, in fact, but for now we will focus on how this depiction of events compares to David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster,” which starts as a review of the Maine Lobster Festival, but soon morphs into an indictment of not only the conventions of lobster preparation, but also the entire idea of having an animal killed for one’s own consumption. Wallace shows great skill in establishing ethos. In the essay, he succeeds in snaring a receptive audience by laying out a well-baited trap for an

Many people at the Maine Lobster Festival find it easy to believe that lobsters feel no pain in order to continue to torture the animal before indulging it without empathy or regret. This ethical practice has been created in order to backup the thoughts of accepting the ideology that it 's "all right" to torture the animal before consumption. While Wallace is in a rental car he

Shrimp use anaerobic metabolism when escaping from predators. Shrimp are benthic animals, which means they live on the bottom and normally in shallow waters because it is easier for shrimp to capture food (Smith et al. 2010). However, shrimp can also live in the deep sea. Since shrimp are filter-feeders and eat small organisms, they are constantly moving around on the sea floor (Nguyen, 1998). In order for shrimp to escape from predators, they dive into sediment. Brine shrimp play a major role in the ecosystem (Nguyen 1998).