Consider “Consider the Lobster”

David Foster Wallace wrote an essay for the magazine the Gourmet. His assignment was to cover the Maine Lobster Festival. At first you would think that this piece would be about praising the festival. I was thinking it would go on and on about how good the lobster was, how fresh it was, how they cooked it, why Maine’s lobsters were simply the best. Then I pictured it going on about the activities of the festival. I was expecting short reviews on the music, the games, the scene there. I thought I was going into an incredibly dull piece on praising the festival when I read “For 56 years, the Maine Lobster Festival has been drawing crowds with the promise of sun, fun, and fine food.” Thankfully that was not what I got. Wallace was very honest during his depiction of events, admitting that this was not his thing, but then he went somewhere interesting. He started talking about lobsters themselves. He talked about scientific facts about the lobster then went into the history of eating lobsters. After that we went on about how we cook lobsters, especially how they are often cooked alive. He contemplates whether this is the right thing to do. He goes into the usual excuses people say when cooking them like “Oh, they don’t feel pain”. He finds evidence to prove these claims wrong. He took a normal piece on the reporting on the Maine Lobster Festival to questioning our moral standing on how we consume lobster. He took the reader to places way farther than a simple review of the festival. He made us go from just thinking lobsters is a food and can’t feel a thing, to really considering whether this is the right thing to do. It made us think beyond, “Oh that sounds nice, maybe I’ll go there next year and try the lobster.” Or in my case, he gave me something to think about, to consider, and not skim over. This piece was so much more than a simple review of the festival. It was Wallace’s true thoughts. A lot of reviews usually do not go on and say everyone else was enjoying it, but me. He was honest and took us through his thoughts on the matter with all the information he gathered. He had us sit and ponder with him if this is really how we should think of lobsters. This was simply a captivating piece. It went beyond expectations. I thought this piece going to have me consider eating lobster, not consider the lives of lobsters and their pain and their lives and their struggles. It went above and beyond a simple review. This essay went from what I thought was going to be a dull piece to an interesting one what captivated me. It went from dull to having me question my moral standing on how we, as humans, can just cook an animal alive. Reading this essay was incredible. It really made me consider the lobster.