Kevin Maigler

EGL 102
Professor Bower
DFW Essay Response
06/17/2024
DFW Essay Response
David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster”, is a
controversial and thought-provoking piece of literature published in
Gourmet magazine. His essay explores the ethics of eating animals, and
illustrates how cultural and psychological factors can influence dietary
choices. These choices sometimes disregard the perspective of an
animal's preference to not suffer or feel pain. He takes time to explore
how humans relate to other animals and why people justify killing and
eating certain animals over others. The article was written with the
intention of provoking thought in an audience of classy food
connoisseurs with disposable income. His article became one of the most
talked about pieces of writing in the magazine's history and the
magazine company received a lot of hate mail from readers. David
Foster Wallace establishes his identity as a correspondent and spends the
first half of the article explaining lobsters from a scientific standpoint,
and as a food or ingredient for various meals. Half way through the
article, he begins to shift the focus towards identifying lobsters as living
beings with the capacity to feel pain and proposes the question of
whether or not it is “alright to boil a sentient creature alive for gustatory
pleasure?” He discusses how lobsters were once thought to be food for
the lower class eaten only by the poor and institutionalized because they
were found in, “unbelievable abundance,” in Old New England. He
mentions how there were once laws against feeding it to prisoners more
than once a week due to lobsters' having a similar reputation as rats,
feeding lobsters to someone was seen as cruel and inhumane. In this day
and age, lobster is known as a rather costly luxury food that is often
regarded as the steak of seafood. Wallace gives a detailed first-person
account of his experience at the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival, held every
late July in the state’s midcoast region. This area is located on the
western side of Penobscot Bay, which is referred to as the nerve stem of
Maine’s lobster industry. He utilizes his footnotes in a humorous manner
in order to describe the culture of Maine, which is where the Maine
Lobster Festival takes place. One footnote indicates that he does not
think the footnote will survive the editing process, and another footnote
states that in a good year, the United States produces a total amount of
80,000,000 pounds of lobster, and Maine accounts for more than half the
total amount. These footnotes provide a platform for him to compare the
process of boiling lobster alive with the process of debeaking chickens,
cropping the tails of swine, and dehorning cattle, which are actions that
cause pain to the animal in order to prevent them from causing each
other pain. The footnotes allow him to propose ideas which give the
reader a chance to question whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill
any animal for the purpose of consumption. He describes Maine’s
midcoast region as being divided into two completely different
communities called Camden and Rockland. Camden is known for its old
money, five-star restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and a yacht filled
harbor. Rockland has the reputation of being a serious old fishing town
that hosts the Maine Lobster Festival along the water. One footnote
mentions that Camden is by the sea, whereas Rockland is by the smell.
Tourism and lobster are the midcoast region’s two main industries, and
the Maine Lobster Festival is known as a place where tourism and
lobster intersect. Wallace was tasked with writing an article about the
Maine Lobster Festival for an audience who may not have been wanting
to consider some of the moral implications he proposes when discussing
a gathering that celebrates boiling lobsters alive. The article was
published for people who probably were not hoping to consider
philosophically debated questions that challenge one's moral compass.
These questions force the reader to consider the moral and scientific
reasons someone might justify the suffering that an animal may face
when being killed or processed for human consumption. Wallace utilizes
logos, ethos, and pathos in order to give voice and perspective to
lobsters who are often disregarded as creatures that are incapable of
experiencing pain and suffering. David Foster Wallace establishes ethos
by identifying himself as a correspondent who was tasked with attending
the Maine Lobster Festival with his parents and girlfriend. He states how
his mother was born and raised in Maine in order to establish a
connection to the state and culture. He describes the Maine Lobster
Festival as a crowded bare necessity type of gathering. He illustrates an
uncomfortable scene with a large number of people gathered in a tent the
size of a square quarter mile standing in lines and sitting cheek by jowl,
leading one to presume there are probably a few people there who are
overweight and out of shape. He describes the variety of ways lobsters
are prepared at the festival. Lobster rolls, lobster turnovers, lobster sauté,
Down East lobster salad, lobster bisque, lobster ravioli, deep-fried
lobster dumplings, and lobster thermidor are all obtainable at or near the
festival grounds. The Maine Lobster Promotion Council has free
pamphlets with recipes, eating tips, and Lobster fun facts. Whether
people see lobster as a source of food or an opportunity to make money,
it seems apparent that it is a part of the culture of Maine and gives
people from all walks of life opportunities to work catching, cooking
and serving lobster. These pamphlets and presentations advertise lobster
meat as having fewer calories, less cholesterol, and less saturated fat
than chicken. What is ironic is that the pamphlets fail to mention that
this lobster is typically served with a four-ounce cup of melted butter, as
mentioned in one footnote. He compares the cost of a meal at
McDonalds in order to explain how lobster is typically served in a way
that is unhealthy like the fast-food chain he refers to. He describes the
sounds of people chewing and smells that are only partly food-related.
The food is served in styrofoam trays and the soft drinks are flat and
warm, and the coffee is convenience-store coffee. He explains how
messy lobster can be to eat and how you are not given enough napkins.
He mentions that there are hardly enough restroom facilities and that
there is nowhere to wash your hands before or after eating.
Lobsters are marine crustaceans that belong to the family
Homaridae. They typically have five pairs of jointed legs, with the first
pair being larger and pincer-like in design so they can hunt and subdue
prey. They are benthic carnivores that are known to hunt for and
scavenge food at the bottom of the ocean. Wallace mentions how the
Maine lobster, Homarus Americanus, is the species of lobster he will be
focused on. He states there are a dozen or so different types of lobsters
worldwide that are crustaceans which are aquatic arthropods of the
Crustacea class. The class consists of crabs, shrimp, barnacles, lobsters,
and freshwater crayfish. Arthropods are members of the phylum
Arthropoda, the phylum which covers insects, spiders, crustaceans, and
centipedes and millipedes. What they have in common aside from
lacking a centralized brain-spine assembly, is a chitinous exoskeleton
composed of segments, to which appendages are articulated in pairs.
They are biologically older than mammals and will seemingly eat
anything including each other, which makes them sound a bit primitive.
Similarly, there are mammals like swine which are known for similar
behaviors, and depending on the circumstance, humans have proven
capable of cannibalism as well. He explains how the name lobster
originated from the Old English word loppestre, which is thought to be a
corrupt form of the Latin word for locust combined with the Old English
word loppe, which meant spider. He admittedly states that the
information he is sharing is “right there in the encyclopedia,” in order to
establish his identity as someone who took time to research lobsters
because he may not have been an expert on lobsters or cooking prior to
attending the Maine Lobster Festival. By breaking down the word
lobster itself, one is able to understand how the animal ended up with a
nickname like “bug.” This nickname presumably makes it easier for
people to disregard their existence as living beings with the capacity to
feel pain so that there is less difficulty justifying killing lobsters for
consumption. He appeals to pathos by comparing lobsters with human
beings and other mammals in order to illustrate their capacity to feel
pain and suffering like people and other mammals. Wallace appeals to
logos by providing facts and information about a lobster’s physiology,
biology, nervous system, basic anatomical structure, and scientific
classification. He explains that there are roughly a dozen different
species of lobster and discusses the different ways of preparing lobsters
both hard and soft shelled. Wallace’s article takes into account his
observations and the perspectives of locals he interacts with at and
around the Maine Lobster Festival. Wallace utilizes footnotes, rhetorical
devices, analogies, irony, similes and personification in order to get the
reader to see lobsters as living beings instead of just a piece of meat.
Wallace provides a tremendous amount of evidence to persuade the
audience that the traditional way of boiling lobsters while they are still
alive is cruel and torturous. Wallace manages to provide a substantial
amount of scientific information, facts, and comparisons in order to
persuade the audience to reconsider the widely accepted process of
boiling lobsters alive. David Foster Wallace presents himself as
someone who cares about lobsters and compares them with humans and
other mammals in order to illustrate them as living beings with the
capacity to feel pain and suffering. He gives the lobster a voice and
compares them to people to show their perspective in a way which
allows the audience to see them as living beings instead of creatures that
lack the capacity to feel pain. Wallace states that there are two main
criteria most ethicists agree on for determining whether or not a living
being has the capacity to suffer, and if the living being in question has
genuine interests that we may or may not be morally obligated to
consider. The first of the two criteria are whether or not the living being
in question has the neurological hardware required for experiencing
pain. The second is whether or not the living being demonstrates
behavior associated with pain. He appeals to pathos by discussing the
lobster’s sentience and capacity for feeling pain. He correlates that
having a preference for something entails a capacity to feel suffering in
order to paint the lobster as an unwilling participant who probably does
suffer and would prefer to not be boiled alive. He explains how lobsters
have preferences for certain temperatures of water and will congregate
to parts of a fish tank that are darkest and furthest away from light. He
mentions how they often have their claws banded to prevent them from
attacking one another which indicates that they prefer not to be crowded.
By explaining how lobsters have preferences and are able to demonstrate
their expression of a preference by clanking and grabbing onto a pot that
is boiling them, he shows how preference is a decisive criterion that
demonstrates their ability to suffer and feel pain. He provides insight for
how one lobsterman and supplier of lobster for the festival justifies
himself for providing lobsters to the festival. He states that there is a part
of the brain in people and animals that lets us feel pain, and lobsters’
brains don’t have this part. The 2003 Maine Lobster Festival program
has a pronouncement on lobsters and pain which essentially proposes the
idea that lobsters lack a cerebral cortex which gives the experience of
pain. It is thought that the cerebral cortex allows for one to reason and
have metaphysical awareness of pain, but Wallace states that pain
reception is known to be part of an older and more primitive system of
nociceptors and prostaglandins managed by the thalamus and brainstem.
He utilizes footnotes which add an element of satire to the tone of his
writing, and to provide insight into the culture of Maine and the way that
lobsters are perceived and consumed. The footnotes are essential to
giving him a place to elaborate on certain ideas and a platform to
propose questions that challenge the reader's morality. In one such
footnote, he appeals to ethos and pathos by comparing the lobster during
the cooking process as a human in terror of falling to their death, and
describes the lobster as behaving how you or I would behave if we were
plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).
He explains how lobster’s behavior while being boiled is an expression
of a preference; which may be a decisive criterion for being able to
demonstrate suffering. Wallace draws comparisons to other mammals in
order to highlight the way that people seemingly justify openly killing
and consuming lobster because they seem to lack the ability to express
pain, and appear to lack the similar biological structure that other
mammals may have in common with human beings. He mentions how
members of PETA, (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), pass
out pamphlets with titles like, “Being Boiled Hurts,” in order to get
festival attendants to question their choice to support a festival which
celebrates openly killing and consuming lobster, and to presumably
dissuade them from wanting to return. Wallace utilizes an analogy when
he compares the Maine Lobster Festival to a hypothetical Nebraska Beef
Festival in order to illustrate the grotesque reality of how the Maine
Lobster Festival can be classified as a medieval type of gathering where
people go to watch lobsters die. The idea is that people would be less
tolerable of the Maine Lobster Festival if cattle or some other mammal
that human beings are able to relate to were unwilling victims brought in
to be slaughtered in public for consumption. He wants the reader to
comprehend that the killing of lobster is no different than slaughtering
cattle for consumption, and to consider whether or not it is wrong to
disregard their capacity to suffer. People seem to feel less guilt over
personally killing them for consumption than they would a cow since
they are not mammals. From an anatomical standpoint, lobsters appear
to have more in common with insects than human beings. Lobsters are
invertebrates that people find more difficulty relating to than birds,
cattle, swine, cats, dogs and rodents. Wallace includes a footnote that
proposes the idea that people feel less uneasy to eat certain animals that
are not mammals. He asks the question of whether or not it matters that
certain types of meat are referred as the same name as the animal like
“lobster,” “fish,” and “chicken,” whereas other types of meat are
referred to with a euphemism like “beef” and “pork” to separate the
meat from the living creature it once was? “Lamb,” although a mammal,
is the one animal that maybe has a biblical-historical reason for retaining
the same name, though it appears that people tend to feel more uneasy
with mammals because we have more in common with them than
lobsters which appear to be more relative to insects;”Midcoasters’ native
term for lobster is, in fact, bug.”
This essay really got me to question my appetite, to wonder if it
is morally acceptable for me to eat any animals, and to reconsider which
foods I choose to consume. David Foster Wallace puts forth a lot of
information and effort into attempting to justify everyone’s perspective
by illustrating how the culture of Maine thrives off of tourism and
lobsters. He mentions a divide between the two main communities in
Maine’s midcoast region, but one can presume that both the upper- and
working-class benefit from lobster and the business and work
opportunities they provide to people. I may not agree with how lobsters
are caught and sold to be killed and eaten, but I can understand that they
provide jobs for people in many different industries such as cooking,
fishing, and food services. They are presumably seen as a vital
component of the economy and culture of Maine. Much like how some
cultures that live by rivers and tributaries value and rely on salmon for a
source of food and income, Maine produces or catches nearly half of the
country's lobster. It should be of no surprise that people there probably
do catch, cook and consume more lobster than people from other parts of
the country. He delves into the different theories about lobsters’ capacity
to experience pain in order to provide reasoning for and against catching
and killing them for human consumption. He explains how people often
justify killing and consuming animals for selfish reasons, or because
they have not worked out a personal ethical system which justifies eating
animals. Wallace states that because it is possible to live and eat well
without consuming animals, it is technically a selfish choice for people
to consume them. Ultimately, people choose to eat certain meats based
on taste or preference in texture of the food, but technically people do
not need to eat meat. People make money off of catching and consuming
lobsters. For some people it is a way to make a living. The way he
compares lobsters to people and other commonly eaten animals really
brought me a sense of guilt when attempting to comprehend being boiled
alive. By explaining the lobster’s physiology and how their inability to
express pain does not necessarily equate to a lack of capacity for feeling
pain, he is able to provide an explanation of the thought process for
someone who might just consider them as food. People seem quick to
correlate a lobster’s apparent lack of awareness with a lack of ability to
feel pain and suffering. He shows how people are willing to believe
anything in order to justify their perspective and choice in appetite
regardless of moral implications. He earned my respect by giving a
voice to a living being that is often seen as lesser than others and
provides a well-rounded and thoroughly explained argument against
killing and consuming lobsters and other animals. He explains both sides
of his argument which appeals to ethos and adds value to his perspective
by demonstrating how he has taken the time to consider perspectives
other than his own. When I was younger, my mother would catch and
kill chipmunks to protect the vegetables she was growing in her garden.
She would set out a bucket of water and put food on a lid from a plastic
container in order to catch and drown them. Although the chipmunks
were unable to comprehend why they were being drowned, it’s not fair
to say that they did not suffer or feel pain in their final moments. These
chipmunks would act similarly to how a lobster might if they were to be
boiled alive. They would exhibit a lot of distress in a desperate attempt
to escape drowning alive. My mother is from Korea and from what I
understand she grew up very poor and possibly had to eat a variety of
animals that people in the United States may never consider as a source
for food in order to survive. Although her reasoning for getting rid of the
chipmunks was so she could protect the food she was growing for her
family, the culture she grew up in may have played a role in her lack of
concern for chipmunks. She may have seen the chipmunks in a similar
way that a homeowner might perceive a thief or intruder. She may not
have kept the chipmunks to cook for food, but she saw it as a necessary
thing to ensure that they did not eat her vegetables. I never forgot seeing
her holding a lid over the bucket. Although I would never support
anyone in doing that to any living being, I am older now and able to
comprehend that she had her reasons to want them gone. Although my
mother may not have seen them as anything more than a nuisance and
similar to a rat, to this day I feel guilt and shame in knowing I was
unable to save them from such a painful and difficult circumstance. I
have a pet ferret who much like lobsters, lacks the ability to express
himself vocally other than the occasional squeak. Unlike cats and dogs
who show their teeth and can demonstrate their feelings of fear and
anger with facial expressions, my ferret seemingly does not possess the
capacity to express and demonstrate his emotions with facial
expressions. He squeaks, and has one set facial expression which makes
it difficult to determine what exactly he may be thinking and feeling.
Although it is uncommon for people in this part of the world to partake
in eating cats, dogs, and ferrets, there are cultures that do and would. I
really could not see myself having to choose between which of the 3 is
more deserving of being eaten or feel it would be fair to say that the
ferret would be easier to boil alive than the others because it cannot
demonstrate or express itself as well as a cat or dog might be able to.
Much like the lobster, my ferret is unable to demonstrate or express
emotions in a similar way that dogs, cats and people are able to. He still
has preferences in appetite, where he sleeps, and makes noises with
different tones for when he is excited and when he is in pain. I could
never imagine having to drown or boil him alive and have to accept that
although he is bigger than a chipmunk, there are people that are capable
of doing similar things to my ferret. David Foster Wallace’s essay,
“Consider the Lobster,” really shed light on why certain cultures tolerate
catching and consuming one type of animal over another. For some it
may just be a way of life and a way to make a living. He makes a valid
point that we as human beings seem to empathize for and have a more
difficult time imagining mammals suffering and in pain than
invertebrates and fish. This essay got me to understand how cultures and
economies can rely on an animal for jobs and business. He discusses the
actions and processes that go into preparing meat, and helped me to
understand why we feel less guilt in eating certain animals like fish,
chicken, and lobster, over other animals like pigs, cows, cats, and dogs.
Wallace’s article takes into account his observations and interactions
with others at the Maine Lobster Festival. He effectively utilizes
footnotes, rhetorical devices, analogies, similes, analogies and
personification in order to get the reader to question their own diet and
morality. He provides a tremendous amount of evidence to persuade the
audience that the traditional way of boiling lobsters while they are still
alive is cruel, and torturous, and selfish.