Should a human being feel sorrow for the murder of a lobster? In Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace this is the central idea of his short story. We the human race are taking the lives of lobsters for granite by eating them and buttering them up as if they’re a delicacy. Wallace is trying to persuade the reader that this is inhumane as the lobster has a soul just like us and can feel pain. By looking at the last paragraph on page 62 we can see where he tries to pull in the readers and persuade them to change their mind on how they feel about the treatment of lobsters. “The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water. A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if its in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take on of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.” The tactics used to persuade the reader in this text are ineffective because the person and how hungry they are along with the environment determine the underlying factor in whether or not a lobster will get eaten or mistreated in. No outside influence will deter a person from making the decision of eating a lobster without visual proof what they’re doing is wrong.

We can see that Wallace tries to use a different writing style then just talking and telling how he feels about lobsters. Instead of telling his story followed with facts he tries to take a different approach by talking directly to the reader so that they can understand the quote on a more realistic scene. As readers we are aware of the process of how lobsters come to become the delicious meal served on a plate. First the processes with how they are captured with bait and then brought to live in a fish tank until they meet their death. Wallace wants us to be remorseful and think about what exactly we are putting the lobster through when we choose to cook it alive knowing as soon as the lobster hit the boiling water that it will no longer be a living creature but better yet an entrée that will be served hot out the pan with a creamy buttery glaze on top of it. The goal of David Foster Wallace story is to make the reader hate oneself for treating the lobster. If one person changes their mind about lobsters then hopefully that will rub off on other people. At the end of the day hunger plays an important part on how people view the treatment of lobsters. When a person is hungry he or she is trying to fill their belly by any means possible so for the presence of facts about the cruelty of how they cook a lobster to come into play will certainly have no effect on the outcome of the persons decisions. Also we as people are carnivores so we are attracted to foods with meat on it. For anyone to believe that the treatment of lobsters is unfair and horrible to do is ridiculous because people everyday have a mission to feed themselves and to do it however they can. Lobsters being killed are nowhere near the problem because what makes a lobster more important than any other creature. 

David Foster Wallace is trying to illustrate to the reader to stop eating lobsters because back when our great-great-great grandma and grandpa lived they would’ve never put lobster in their mouth because it was seen as low class food only eaten by the poor and institutionalized. In the 1800’ s for criminals being fed lobster was seen as cruel and unusual punishment. Lobster back then was compared to eating rats. Once again Wallace is trying to sway the mind of the people to believe that if a food was ever not seen as for the wealthy or seen as lower class food then people will be drawn away from it and wont allow themselves to eat it. Wallace is trying to use a psychological approach to deter your mind from believing eating lobster is fine and that there is no injustice behind it. When in doubt times have evolved and foods that would’ve been on the bottom of the food pyramid in terms of classiness have changed. Ordering a lobster at a restaurant will ring you up a hefty bill so how is food that supposed to be cruel and unusual punishment pricey? All in all the psychology used by Wallace to sway people stances on lobsters aren’t bold enough because there isn’t enough evidence to back it up.

The Maine Lobster Festival is a countrywide known event due to celebrating lobsters and how delicious they’re. The Maine Lobster Festival has been going on for 68 years and has had a turnout of 80,000 people. Its been recognized and talked about on CNN and all these lobster lovers would laugh at the thought of lobsters being low class food or even inhumane to cook them. Traditions are hard to come by so for a tradition to be started and maintained for so long shows that there is no little thing like a short story written about how bad all these lobster acts are that are going to change anything. 

David Foster Wallace did makes interesting points to try and persuade the readers to change their opinion on the treatment of lobsters. However, his tactics were ineffective and poorly executed with not enough factual information to change the average carnivores mind. He didn’t execute the plan to change the mind of people who are hungry and need something to eat, or celebrate this tradition annually. There’s simply no way to change a person mind about lobsters with words. If Wallace wants to really deter people from the mistreatment and murder of lobsters then he has to have visual proof because when people see a video showing how harmful it actually is it sticks longer then a bunch of words trying to defend a claim. 

 