Wallace Essay
Analysis & Summary: Consider the Lobster
An “enormous, pungent, and extremely well-marketed Maine Lobster Festival” the illustrative foundation for David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster”. Wallace is able to accurately depict for the reader, an immense celebration of people relishing in the festivities of the annual Maine Lobster Festival in Penobscot Bay. The festival itself is best described in a few words as commotion at its finest, and most delicious. While the preponderance of festival participators identifies the yearly celebration as a simple celebration, David Wallace digs a bit beyond the surface merely to analyze the festival in an utterly peculiar view. Wallace’s article goes from a yawn worthy festival review to a history paper and finally morphs into somewhat of an awkward conscious questioning lobster essay you would find in a PETA magazine. Although the writer doesn’t seem to have a true personal passion for these sea critters, but his use of rhetoric devices such as ethos, pathos, logos, imagery, personification and juxtaposition among many others sure make it seem that he does.
"Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?" Beyond the first few paragraphs, Wallace starts tugging at many of the festival goers’ moral compasses and an undaunted examination into the moral values of boiling an animal alive. This is truly evident when he points out majority of lobster recipes don’t tell people that the lobster is basically boiled to death when cooking it into a meal, pointing out some of the apprehension of bluntly telling people your torturing this animal to death for your enjoyment. His article highlights the two precise coping mechanisms that many employ when encountered with the harsh actuality of inducing animal torment--sidestepping and disassociation. Although many experiments and opinions in the article claim lobsters don’t feel pain to they don’t feel pain the way humans do, Wallace's
An “enormous, pungent, and extremely well-marketed Maine Lobster Festival” the illustrative foundation for David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster”. Wallace is able to accurately depict for the reader, an immense celebration of people relishing in the festivities of the annual Maine Lobster Festival in Penobscot Bay. The festival itself is best described in a few words as commotion at its finest, and most delicious. While the preponderance of festival participators identifies the yearly celebration as a simple celebration, David Wallace digs a bit beyond the surface merely to analyze the festival in an utterly peculiar view. Wallace’s article goes from a yawn worthy festival review to a history paper and finally morphs into somewhat of an awkward conscious questioning lobster essay you would find in a PETA magazine. Although the writer doesn’t seem to have a true personal passion for these sea critters, but his use of rhetoric devices such as ethos, pathos, logos, imagery, personification and juxtaposition among many others sure make it seem that he does.
"Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?" Beyond the first few paragraphs, Wallace starts tugging at many of the festival goers’ moral compasses and an undaunted examination into the moral values of boiling an animal alive. This is truly evident when he points out majority of lobster recipes don’t tell people that the lobster is basically boiled to death when cooking it into a meal, pointing out some of the apprehension of bluntly telling people your torturing this animal to death for your enjoyment. His article highlights the two precise coping mechanisms that many employ when encountered with the harsh actuality of inducing animal torment--sidestepping and disassociation. Although many experiments and opinions in the article claim lobsters don’t feel pain to they don’t feel pain the way humans do, Wallace's