The very title of the essay appeals to the audience and alerts them to some extent, as Wallace uses the imperative construction to draw his readers’ attention. He doesn’t want only to explain his readers the matter from different points of view, but also to make them regard it in details and come to their own conclusions. “Consider the Lobster” is addressed to different kinds of audience: to tourists who are eager to visit the Maine Lobster Festival, to sea world scientists who are seeking answers to the questions of lobsters’ existence and survival, to seafood lovers who enjoy delicious dishes made from fresh lobsters mainly, and, of course, to animal protectors who can’t remain indifferent to the way lobster are cooked. It can be opined that the essay in context goes on to address issues related to lobsters so as to ignite a consciousness about inhumanity and insensitivity encompassing lobsters and animal abuse in general.
Wallace seems to draw a peculiar circle of life in general – from entertainment and enjoyment to destruction and death so as to consider the lobster from every perspective and ask themselves a truly ethical question. Wallace is trying to find the answer to the most controversial moral dilemma of being human even to the lowers tier of animal representatives, in other words, to the most fragile and unprotected creatures which deserve protection and care. Wallace names all the stages of lobster cooking in order to emphasize the most striking and less known fact of each lobster being alive when put in the kettle, and can’t help asking a question: “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” (Wallace 60). It needs to be comprehended that the primary aim of the author of the essay is to highlight the innate inhumanity and insensitivity associated with the killing and the cooking of the lobsters. It is truly interesting to identify how the author veils his true ambition in the garb of the fun and frolic that is represented in the beginning of the essay in context. The author sets up the mood for the essay and then gradually exposes the grave issues related to the issue that seem to get undermined by the shallowness of enjoyment and pomp encompassing the festivity. One has to comprehend the fact that the essay’s aim is to channelize the perspective of the avid readers toward the larger societal issue of inhumanity associated with killing of other species for food. The author successfully ignites the argument and makes one ponder about the shallowness of approach when it comes to choice of food.
It is truly intriguing to note how the author engages the readers with the essay. He first hogs their attention with the description of the festivity and then appeals to their emotions via the affective expressions and descriptions that expose the innate cruelty and insensitivity that shrouds the entire episode that has been described in the beginning of the essay. Thus, Wallace is highly successful in create an ambiance where he first points to the worldly pleasures and then critiques the same pointing to the hollowness of such worldly pleasures that come at the cost of killing another species for food. Therefore, everything in Wallace’s essay is directed to appeal to his audience and make them consider the problem not only of lobsters, but also of animal abuse in general. The vivid imagery of lobster being boiled alive and turning scarlet for everybody’s pleasure and excitement, the complicated language with its shifts from descriptive passages to scientific commentaries and ethical explanations, the repetition of questions which remain unanswered thus provoking more and more new questions to regard and think over are aimed to inspire the readers to reconsider their basic concepts of life cycles and human relations when respect to other creatures, even to the lowest and least noticeable ones, and care about them prove people’s level of maturity and humanity, and our comforts and pleasures should be balanced with our duties and responsibilities for everybody alive, no matter whether it is a mammal or a lobster.
It would be correct to conclude that the essay in context goes on to transcend the boundary of the discussed subject of lobsters, their killing and the food for humans. Rather, one can opine that lobsters here work as the epitome of all the living species that are on the receiving end of human brutality and insensitivity for the purpose of food that can be described to be one of the basic needs of humans yet a worldly pleasure. Preparation of gourmet dishes cannot be the valid reason so as to undermine the cruelty and abuse of any living species in the world. The chronology of description, the language and the portrayal of the issue makes that essay really contextual and important so as to bring the limelight on the issue of animal abuse and shallowness of humans about the matter. Wallace is successful in stirring the minds of the avid readers with his vivid description and raises the ethical questions at the right point of time in the narrative of the essay so as to initiate a debate and ethical considerations among all his readers through the portrayal of the killing and subsequent preparation of the dishes comprised of the lobsters.
Works Cited
Wallace, David Foster. Consider the Lobster: Essays and Arguments. London: Hachette Digital, 2006. Web. 04 February 2016.
