Your Thoughts on āConsider the Lobsterā
For Assignment #4, you will be writing a short summary of David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster.” Before then, it will be helpful for us to think about the article and understand both the content and the intent of the writer. Let’s begin that work by responding to a few questions.
What do you think that “Consider the Lobster” is about?
What are the themes of the review that you can identify?
What questions do you have about the text?
Directions
Write two paragraphs, the first about what you think “Consider the Lobster” is about. In your second paragraph, write about the themes you have identified and/or the questions you have about the text.
Grading
This is class discussion work for our online course. Please post your response as a comment. These are due by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. during the Week they are assigned, making this one is due 9/20/20. A complete response is worth up to 15 points.
An essay called āConsider the Lobster” written by David Foster Wallace consists of many ideas. The most important one that stuck out and that was mainly about, at the beginning, is to let the readers know about the amazing festival that is presented every year. This festival is called the āMaine lobster festivalā, held in the state’s mid coastal region. It not only shows the importance of the lobsters but it seemed like tourism was also considered important in the essay.
At the beginning one would think that all the writing would be about how great the festival is, how the food itās good to and that people should go. Consider the Lobster could have meant trying it and your opportunity would be by going to the festival but itās not. The writer shifts to talk about another idea. Wallace begins to stress the fact about boiling lobsters alive. She shares about how most people enjoy eating the lobster but there are other people who cannot stand the fact that lobsters are suffering while being boiled alive. When he expressed his ideas about the situation, his tone seemed very bothered. It’s not moral for humans to kill the lobster while alive for satisfaction to eat, is what most people would believe. David Wallece definitely got his point through to the audience by expressing his ideas.
I believe that ” Considering the Lobster” by David Foster Wallance is about how important lobsters are in the ocean. The author tries to explain his experience in the festival. The author talk issues around lobsters like how the PETA activist began to protect. I think the author is just trying to give the reader a brief understanding of a lobsters history. I believe that after I read this article, than I will understand the main purpose of this article.
After reading this article, the author talks about the Marine Lobster Festival that happens once a year and during this festival, alot of lobster is cnsumed and cooked in manyy different ways. One theme that I was able to identity was human empathy. In the article the author talks about how inhuane it is for lobsters to be boiled alive. He explains how humans do not seem to take the animals feelings into account when they are cooking the lobster. That animals should be treated like humans. He explains how the animal should be killed with the least pain as possible.
Throughout the reading āConsider the Lobsterā by David Foster Wallace a lot happened. It wasn’t just a regular article about the maine lobster festival, well half of it talked about the 25,000 pounds of lobster and how its been a happening for the past 56 years. Lobster is a summer food and once it gets colder they move deeper in the water. Back then lobsters were food of the poor because of how plentiful the lobster were england. The text talks about the lobster and how they are cooked and how they are served. When you boil a lobster it takes 30-45 seconds to die, but do we know if its actually suffering? ” Lobsters die in terrible pain and you shouldn’t eat them.” Mary Tyler stated “Lobsters are extraordinarily sensitive”, throughout this other half of the article it is explained how lobsters have feelings that they are sensitive and should not be killed for gustatory pleasure.There are two different type of pain, as a purely neurological and actually suffering.
One of the themes in this passage would be animal cruelty killing animals to be eaten. This article talked about lobster actually suffering in the process of being cooked. Lobster have feelings and animals as well, although it is a part of their life to be killed at some point. There are some people that dont like the fact that they are being killed. People say that maybe cutting their heads off would be easier but that would be just be a violent thing to do, killing off a lobster’s head actually doesn’t make it a quicker death. ” Lobsters are more like those frontal lobotomy patients..patients eventually feel physical pain, neurologically speaking”. Animals are being slaughtered to be feed overall and they do suffer even if we think they don’t. 30-45 seconds it takes for a lobster to stop feeling anything while being boiled they feel the heat they know pain. Every living creature or human feels pain, but it is part of life. Foster states that we don’t know how they feel and its true, we are unable to communicate with them to know how they feel, maybe they do feel pain maybe they don’t. No questions but all animals are meant for something there are around 200 million animals that are used for food, we don’t see the part of them being killed we don’t feel the pain but they do.
āConsider the Lobsterā by David Foster Wallace is an article written to show to the public what the Marine Lobster Festival is about and how it is carried out. However, it is not just about explaining its events, the people, but also to shed light on how as a society, people have come to see animal cruelty as normal. In this case, the animal being discussed is the lobster. The article starts of with the statement that the Marine Lobster Fair promises sun, fun, and fine food. And while those things do get to be experienced, it is how the food specifically gets to the people, that is controversial. Lobster is quite an interesting food because it has gone through many stages. For instance, up until the 1800s, lobster was only consumed by the poor, and now it is a delicacy. It is this delicacy that brings people out to this festival and while many people may only see fresh lobster and fun, what activists such as member of PETA see, is the animal cruelty and mistreatment of the lobster. The article is about seeing the ugly truth behind the Marine Lobster Festival.
Themes that I can see in the article, āConsider the Lobster,ā is the ethical concern with food, in this case, lobster, as well as the lack of humanity in people. After explaining what the idea of the Marine Lobster Festival, the author goes on to explain the issues. The main issue represented is that lobsters are basically cooked alive in order to keep it fresh. This in itself shows animal cruelty, but the inhumanity comes in when the author explains how even chefs sometimes walk away from a cooking lobster so as to not hear it trying to escape. Though it may be argued that lobsters do not feel the pain of being cooked, one cannot help but wonder how a person could willfully do such a thing, to cook a living organism. The author gives the lobster a human aspect, by stating that if it were a human, it would have the same reaction as the lobster: to try and survive until its last minute. The lobsters are already under the stress of captivity, only to be taken alive and cooked. Overall, this article shed light on the cruelty of what cooking lobster is really like.
After reading ” consider the lobster” by David Foster Wallace I came to realize the cruelty (we as) humans put animals through. In the beginning he focuses on this specific event called Maine lobster festival and how they tend to consume about 25,000 pounds of lobster throughout the whole festival. He starts off by giving us some background information about lobsters and slowly starts to dig into his claim. By this I mean that at first he talks about the so called “impact” this festival has on the people but what they don’t realize is the harm they put these animals through. We live in a society where we’re pretty much living life and following tasks like every other person, we grow up having the mentality that harming animals is okay because we live off of it and some of us just follow that concept till our very last day. Thankfully Foster was able to explain himself about how animals may not communicate but they still go through pain, it may not be the same idea that we have of “pain” but even lobsters go through it. A festival like this one puts animals at risk and sadly it doesn’t only happen with festivals it happens on a daily, animals are killed everyday and we won’t see something wrong with it until our future comes along and we have no resources where we’ll wish we valued all the animals and crops we had.
One of the themes in “considering the lobster” would be pain. Pain is a strong word, a feeling that we feel within our hearts. The thing with this situation is that society doesn’t tend to think about animals pain, we act as if animals are numb and that’s not the case because we put these animals through so much harm that one day there’s really isn’t going to be any animals left. I’d consider this a theme because he focuses on different types of pain animals go through because it isn’t the same as us humans since were able to communicate meanwhile animals aren’t able to. Like he said ” the lobster behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water”. His point of view is honestly very understandable and its very true, we never think about how these animals feel but if we were to think about ourselves going through the situation we would easily scream for help. Overall Foster is very clear with his beliefs and strongly expressed the two sides in society, those who go to festivals waiting hours for your dinner to be killed and made and those who are fighting to make a change.
Before reading “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace, I thought it was going to be about informing people on how we are harming lobsters and other sea animals for our benefits. By just reading the title I felt that the author had a point to prove to the people that related to this article and that they need to make some changes with the things there doing because it selfish to the animals their hurting. After reading “Consider the Lobster” I still feel the same way but it’s just a lot more detail then I thought it would be. The article was about the personal experience that Wallace had when it came to animal cruelty within the Maine Lobster Festival. He explains that there have been activist from PETA that have been around these festivals since the mid-1990s and that their concerns have been on articles from “The Camden Herald” to the New York Times” and how they feel like eating and cooking lobsters are completely wrong and how they would never do it and that they need people to view it in their eyes so understand how wrong it is.
I feel like a theme that was shown throughout the article could be morality. I feel this way because of the definition of morality is conduct that conforms to an accepted standard of right and wrong. Therefore, it does connect with each other because throughout the text it explaining how people feel like it okay to have festivals about killing and eating lobster while other find it morally wrong in the situation and that there shouldn’t be an event about an animal being cooked alive for others enjoyment. Another the theme can be empathy because the activist group PETA are trying to prove to these people that them having these event and making it such a huge deal sound that they donāt have empathy for these animals and how they are just cruel and wrong because they don’t find it a problem and don’t care. Even one of the activists painted themselves as a lobster and wanted to see how people felt if it came from different perspective and that animals can talk and show their pain.
After the reading of “Consider the lobster” I gather the article is about the famous lobsters,activities and shows the lobster festival in Maine has every year in the summer.The article also displays the difficulty that the festival has each year by the PETA group encouraging people to go aganist cooking lobster. The group is fully againist cooking lobsters and also says it’s very brutal to lobsters because they have feelings too. The article also states the differences in hard and soft shell lobsters.The article also discusses the emontional and mental state that lobsters encounter from us trapping them to cooking them which is very heart breaking but not so much for me to stop eating them.
The theme I identified from the article “Consider the lobster” is the ignorance of the life of the lobster.Much people don’t know or care about the life of a lobster because they are busy eating them,I can be honest and say I’m one of them but now I can feel empathy for their lifes and stop feeling so happy when I eat them because of the way they act when boiling them. We as people should spread the word and let everybody know the life of the lobster so they can know what goes behind there lobster meals.
After reading “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace, I can conclude that the article is about the author’s experience at the Maine Lobster Festival and his concerns in regards to animal cruelty. Wallace’s argument brings about the thoughts on ethical decision-making. His article’s opening about the Maine Lobster Festival was the attraction for the article’s main purpose. Later on, Wallace mentions the back story of lobsters and how they’re cooked to build on topic of animal rights and moral consideration. Using that information, he builds on the issue on lobsters at the Maine Lobster Festival.
I believe the theme of the article is moral behaviors. Wallace mentions that the lobsters must be cooked alive, bringing concerns to the pain felt by the lobsters. Cooks in restaurants and people at home prepare their lobsters alive rather than dead because they’ll be fresh. Wallace states that lobsters feel as much pain as humans. Putting the lobsters in boiling hot water is triggering to some because of the loud noises made by the lobsters while being steamed. I am ashamed because I’ve ate lobsters on multiple occasions and now I feel bad because I never looked at it from this perspective. It is cruel that they had to be cooked alive for the enjoyment of our appetite’s and cravings.
In the reading āConsider the Lobsterā Wallace describes the Maine Lobster Festival and the Worldās Largest Lobster Cooker in New England. The writer has developed issues of concern for people like vegans or people who don’t eat animals. Taking the Maine Lobster Festival as an example and describing the visit to the festival in which, there were many inconveniences such as folding chairs, beer smuggling, plastic forks, etc. Also, develops the fresh-caught lobster can eat in the summer season in New England.
During the reading, Wallace describes the background of the lobster by developing the theme about lobsters at the Maine Lobster Festival in the Worldās Largest Lobster Cooker. Most people steam lobsters at home over low heat, and there are different ways to cook lobsters. And the concern of whether the lobsterās behavior is due by the conduct of the environment or if the lobster feels pain. We cannot be sure if other beings feel pain because only, we feel ours. I have found concerns about animal abuse and the preparation of the food we eat daily. These concerns have led people to think about what they eat and make a decision to continue consuming animals or to change their food. In addition, we must take into account that our body needs these nutrients. This reading has made me think about the foods that I eat daily.
I believe that āConsider the Lobsterā by David Foster Wallace about his experience when he went to a lobster festival in Maine. He describes in detail the festival on the people who attend the festival, the food, the company who produces the festival. However, he also talked about and focused a lot on the action of boiling the lobsters alive for the festival plus for food. In addition, it was also about how when the PETA activists known as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, they began to protest. Furthermore, he says how yes people can enjoy the lobster because of the freshness of the lobster from killing them on the spot but a lot of people canāt handle that since people say that the lobster shows signs of suffering. Moreover, he says that humans think that it is okay to put an animal through pain and suffering but it is not. Finally, he talks about how people in the future are going to look back at this and see the monsters we are to treat animals the way we do.
One theme that I am able to identify is about human empathy and he demonstrates by describing how humans donāt have empathy for animals and how with empathy comes a responsibility to consider the animal that we kill for our consumption. To add on, he says how we owe some consideration to the animals and to kill them with the least suffering as possible for the animals. Another theme that I have identified was animal rights since he talks about how animals donāt deserve to suffer the way they do because when people boil the lobster alive they show signs of suffering. Finally, the last theme that I can identify is pain and suffering since he talks about how lobsters suffer when being boiled alive.
I think “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace is about the important of lobster and how people consume it. I think the author will be giving brief information on what lobster is and the history behind lobster. Although many people may not have read this article before, I think that I will have a better understanding of lobster after reading this article.
After reading “Consider the Lobster”, the author opens up by discussing the Maine Lobster festival where over 25,000 pounds of fresh lobster are consumed. After discussing about the Main Lobster festival the author goes into talking about what lobster is and the history behind it. For example, he talks about how the poor used to eat it back in the days and it was consider a low class food. He also explains how lobster has changed over the years considering that now many people eat lobster and lobster is not a low class food anymore. Also, he explains the survival of lobsters and it acts when it is alive. In addition, the author discusses how many people enjoy eating lobster and their interest with lobster. Lastly, the author conducts many points with the changes with lobster and how many people go to the lobster festival. Lobster can be other things, not just one thing. One theme I have encounterd is pain and suffering. Pain and suffering has driven to a big change.
Hi Darimari,
There is much more to consider here. You will definitely need to read it again to do more than scratch the surface for your summary!
Hi Darimari,
Yes, but what is the larger point that Wallace is trying to make here in pointing out society’s barbarity when it comes to the animals we consume for food? I think there’s a point he’s trying to make within the various conversations about lobster he is developing.
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