Have you ever taken a step back while preparing a lobster to consider what you are actually doing?  Would you go and watch a cow get slaughtered and think nothing of it?  Why does the image of a slaughtered cow bother us, but not a boiled lobster?   In Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, Wallace questions the steps that humans take when preparing to eat a lobster.  He argues humans have not considered the lobster when they carelessly throw the lobster into boiling water.  Most people believe that lobsters cannot feel pain, but the behavior the lobster exhibits while submerged in the boiling water suggests otherwise.  Wallace’s main theme in the text is that we need to consider the lobster not as food, but as a living creature just like us.  By looking at page 62 the reader can see that lobsters are thought of as food, instead of a living animal.  This is important because one can clearly see that humans have not considered the lobster.

Wallace uses word choice to display his displeasure with the whole process on page 62.  He uses words like boiled alive to convey the unpleasantness of killing the lobster in order to eat it.  He also describes the lobsters as preparations, which again conveys that people think of lobsters as food first and foremost.  Later, Wallace contrasts the words stuporous and alarmingly when he says “However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water” (62).  One can see that the lobster is affected by this process more than we previously thought.  Furthermore, he uses the word cling to suggest that the lobster is trying to escape the boiling pot.  Additionally, he uses the words rattling and clanking to describe the lobster’s behavior to further emphasize their desire to get out.  Lastly, he mentions the lobster thrashing around in the kettle.  This unique vocabulary is used to compare the lobster’s behavior to that of a human’s behavior if one were to be boiled alive.  This is done to not only to make the reader feel guilty, but also to make the reader consider the unpleasant experience of killing a lobster.  By describing the lobster with words such as cling and thrash, the reader begins to sympathize with the lobster.

To further emphasize the way lobsters are cooked, the Maine Lobster Festival is compared to a Nebraska Beef Festival.  The thought of watching lobsters die at a lobster festival is fine, but no one would come to a beef festival where the main attraction is watching cows get slaughtered.  Wallace says “Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something-there’s no way” (Wallace 62).  This comparison is affective because it forces us to see the flaw in our logic, and once again consider the lobster.  Later, Wallace compares the lobster to a human.  He says “the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof” (Wallace 62).  Again Wallace tries to make the connection of a lobster and a human to draw sympathy from the reader, and also to describe the depressing process of cooking a lobster.  By using imagery on page 62, one can see the comparisons between humans and lobsters.  This is used to vividly display the necessarily unpleasant steps of killing a lobster, as well as further emphasize the point that lobsters are seen as food in people’s eyes.  

Characterization is used on page 62 to make the lobster appear more human.  Irony is used when to describe the lobster’s behavior while being submerged in boiling water.  The lobster’s behavior is compared to that of a human when it is described as clinging to the side of the container and thrashing around in the water.  This is ironic because we know what we are doing to the lobster is clearly harming it, yet we do it anyway.  Additionally, hyperbole is used when he says “However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water” (Wallace 62).  This exageration injects some comedy into the text, as well as also points out that lobsters appear to sense pain.  One can clearly see the similarities between lobsters and humans by using characterization.

The main message of Consider the Lobster is that the lobster is more than just food, and also that we should think twice before dumping it into boiling water.  The passage that I chose on page 62 illustrates and contributes to the theme of the work.  The vivid imagery illustrates the disturbing process of killing a lobster, while the word choice is used to make the lobster appear more human in order to connect humans and lobsters.  Wallace wants us to consider the lobster, which he accomplishes by his affective use of word choice, imagery and characterization.  One can clearly see the negative process that is cooking a lobster.  Next time that you decide to make lobster for dinner, take a step back and consider what you are actually doing.
