Analysis Of The Book ' Consider The Lobster ' By David Foster Wallace

In his essay Consider the Lobster, it’s apparent what David Foster Wallace is trying to tell his audience: we should really think about the lobster’s point of view before cooking and eating it. Wallace uses multiple rhetorical strategies to get his point across, including pathos and ethos. His essay is very good in how it gets its point across, and how it forces even the largest lobster consumers to truly contemplate how the lobster might react being boiled alive. It brings up many controversial topics of animal rights that many people tend to avoid, especially people who are major carnivores. Wallace’s use of rhetorical strategies really gets the reader thinking, and thoroughly captures the argument of many vegetarians against the consumption of animals. Wallace captures the use of pathos in his essay and uses it in a way that is incredibly convincing to the reader. For example, he compares the Maine Lobster Festival to how a Nebraska Beef Festival could be, stating, “at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there…” (Wallace 700). Playing off of people’s natural tendency to feel bad for the cattle, he shows that the killing of lobster is, in reality, no different than the killing of cattle, but we treat it much differently. We tend to think that lobsters are different because they are less human than cows are, and, maybe to make us feel better about our senseless killing of an animal,

Man is a product of two worlds— the one he inhabits and the one he strives to create. The fisherman in Lawrence Sargent Hall’s “The Ledge” is caught somewhere between the two. A calloused, hardworking man who lives in a cold corner of the world, he is a father, a husband, and a man. Hall uses the perception of others, the actions of the protagonist, and direct narration to ultimately expose the real, imperfect humanity of the fisherman.

In Consider The Lobster, David Foster Wallace raises an ethical question: “Is it right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” However, this essay is not to provide a definite answer to this question but lets the readers come up with their own answers. Wallace uses rhetorical strategies such as comparison, imagery, and questions to make the audiences think deep about the moral lens of consuming lobsters.

In addition to his solutions, Pollan’s modern narrative sheds light on the façade of our food industries; asking us to rethink what we know. Despite the mention of certain inhumane acts in All Animals are Equal, Pollan takes us one step further to uncover the reason for which we continue to purchase our corrupt food. We all know animal abuse exists, but the average consumer like myself is more worried about the best price and the fastest way to get a burger rather than how fairly the animals are treated in the process. Whether it be the confined living space of chickens or the mental and physical torture of pigs, we continue to blind ourselves from reality. Is it purely out of selfishness? Or are we too ignorant to come to terms with our wrong doings? Like Pollan explains, it takes seeing the abuse before the shame of our disrespect can be felt (pg.6). After seeing Pollan’s truth, I might now think twice before eating out and the choice to support organic produce can make a dramatic difference for those farmers who promote the ethical lifestyle.

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.

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’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

​In conducting a rhetorical analysis of the two articles, "Joel Salatin: How to Eat Animals and Respect Them, Too" by Madeline Ostrander and "Humane Meat? No Such Thing" by Sunaura Taylor, both articles stand in stark contrast in terms of the viewpoints of meat that they present. In order to gain a better understanding of these viewpoints, it's important to understand the persuasive techniques that both authors use in the article for the reader. More specifically, the ethos, pathos, and logos that they employ, as well the way in which the evidence and support is presented will further elucidate upon the arguments that appear in both articles.

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

In “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace asks his readers to consider if eating lobsters or other animals is ethical. He describes how lobsters show a preference to not be boiled by their efforts to avoid or escape the pan. He argues that this preference is proof that the lobster suffers or feels pain. However, he ignores the fact that the same argument can be made about plants. While working in landscaping, I discovered that grasses produce a chemical in distress right before they are cut from a lawnmower or attacked by insects. This shows that the grass prefers to not be cut or eaten just as the lobster did. As humans, we must eat either plants or animals to survive. If both plants and animals feel pain and show a preference to live,

In “Consider the Lobster,” Wallace talks about the ethical side of cooking lobsters alive. He starts his passage by talking about the Maine Lobster Festival where people are consuming a lot each year. After pointing out that lobsters are basically giant sea insects, he goes on and explains the history of lobsters. Then the focus of the passage shifts to the discussion of morality behind consuming lobsters. Wallace goes on views both side of the debate on whether eating lobsters is ethical. In the passage, he discusses how it is ethical because lobsters do not feel pain because they don’t have cerebral cortex. And he debunks the fact by discussing an experiment that lobsters attempt to escape the boiling water. Then he goes on and continues

An intense, aggressive moral scrutiny has sparked interest in the meat eating community. Eating is an activity that we as humans do frequently, and the variety of food is immense. We decide what we are about to eat and how it will affect our bodies. In different societies, controversy has arisen over the morality of eating meat from animals. However, the moral and ethical arguments of eating meat is not a new debate. Roger Scruton’s essay, “A Carnivore’s Credo”, addresses both carnivores and vegetarians by using an appeal to pathos and ethos to persuade people of the need to “remoralize” eating meat, and extrapolating that to mean that human beings have the conscious ability to choose and stand up for moral right and wrong.