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Have you ever considered the lobster? In David Foster Wallaces essay, “Consider the Lobster,” he explains all the ins and outs of deeper thinking of consideration. David Foster Wallace opens up a whole new level of focus on the cruelty of animals, but specifically lobster. To most of society there is an apparent difference between understanding a dog’s or cat’s feelings compared to a lobster, but why? What is the reason we can have a real connection to the common pet but then won’t think twice about a lobster’s life? This essay goes deep into detail from the lobster’s neural activity, reactions to cruelty, and the cruel ways society treats these living creatures with disrespect.  

David Foster Wallace begins his essay by setting the scene of the Maine Lobster Festival, a place where 100,000 people come together to enjoy 25,000 pounds of fresh Maine lobster in an array of dishes. He then dives into types of lobsters and the history of lobsters. Lobsters were once a meal served to prisoners but now are a delicacy to most. He then provides an in-detail explanation of the lobster’s migration process, life span, and general life qualities like size and weight.  This information could be a way to get the reader to form a connection to the lobster’s life.  

Throughout my childhood when I was dragged to the boring grocery store by my parents, I loved going and watching the lobster tank. To think I was so innocent that I never realized that those helpless creatures were soon to be boiled alive. I actually didn’t give it a second thought until after I read David Foster Wallaces essay. I have always had a soft spot for animals, and it is understandable why people don’t commonly have empathy for lobsters. They are scary, have sharp claws, and show no facial emotion for humans to create an emotional bond with. To most people they are delicious and a tradition to eat during the summer or holidays. My family loves lobster and has an annual seafood bake where we can bring friends and family together to have a good time and enjoy the rare yet delicious meal. 

There is a controversial argument regarding if a lobster can feel pain. In “Consider the Lobster” David Foster Wallace states, “Lobsters do not, on the other hand, appear to have the equipment for making or absorbing natural opioids like endorphins and enkephalins, which are what more advanced nervous systems use to try to handle intense pain.” which leads us to wonder if the lack of natural opioids makes lobsters more vulnerable to pain or if the absence of natural opioids creates an absence of the intense pain sensations that the natural opioids are used to lessen the effect of. 

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Have you ever considered the lobster? In David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster,” he explains all the ins and outs of deeper thinking of consideration. Wallace opens up a whole new level of focus on the cruelty of animals, specifically lobster. After reading, ‘What the Crow Knows,” by Ross Andersen I realized a different approach to animals. Andersen’s essay presents the importance of animal’s consciousness compared to Wallaces essay showing that animals minds are not as strong as humans. To most of society there is an apparent difference between understanding a dog’s or cat’s feelings compared to that of a lobster. What is the reason why we can have a real connection to the common pet but then won’t think twice about a lobster’s life? It is absolutely because humans don’t want or try to understand the emotions another species can experience. Most humans are incredibly selfish and do not have the ability to open their minds to feel for another creature. This essay goes deep into detail about the lobster’s neural activity, reactions to cruelty, and the cruel ways society treats these living creatures with disrespect.  

David Foster Wallace begins his essay by setting the scene of the Maine Lobster Festival, a place where 100,000 people come together to enjoy 25,000 pounds of fresh Maine lobster in an array of dishes. He then dives into types of lobsters and the history of lobsters. Lobsters were once a meal served to prisoners but now are a delicacy to most. He then provides an in-detail explanation of the lobsters’ migration process, life span, and general life qualities like size and weight. This information could be a way to get the reader to form a connection to the lobsters’ life. Wallace holds an interesting perspective on consideration. Society keeps a tight grip on their traditions, but they are not always morally correct. Traditions can be passed down for generations, but life is constantly evolving, which can cause traditions to become invalid over time. For instance, lobsters were once a low-class food and as stated by Wallace, “…some colonies had laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than once a week because it was thought to be cruel and unusual,” (Wallace 499) but now, it’s usually the most expensive thing on a restaurant menu and people splurge to have it as a special treat. Traditions from years ago may not work in modern times. People may follow a tradition for years, because it was a practice within their family, but once they mature, they realize they don’t want to be involved anymore.  

Throughout my childhood when I was dragged to the boring grocery store by my parents, I loved going and watching the lobsters in that tiny tank. To think I was so innocent that I never realized that those helpless creatures were soon to be boiled alive. I actually didn’t give it a second thought until after I read David Foster Wallaces essay. I have always had a soft spot for animals, and it is understandable why people don’t commonly have empathy for lobsters. They are scary, have sharp claws, and show no facial emotion for humans to create an emotional bond with. To most people they are delicious and a tradition to eat during summer events or holiday dinners. My family loves lobster and has an annual seafood bake where we can bring friends and family together to have a good time and enjoy the rare yet delicious meal. While my family enjoys this tradition, with my new knowledge I have been focused on how the lobsters may feel. It is quite amazing the difference between the people that find nothing wrong with abusing animals in order to eat them and the people that have moral standards to never harm an animal. In “Consider the Lobster” it discusses the Maine Lobster Festival where thousands of people come from all over the world to indulge in lobster dishes. David Foster Wallace quotes one of those thousands of attenders, Dick, a father-in-law of a professional lobstermen. Dick says, “There’s a part of the brain in people and animals that lets us feel pain, and lobsters’ brains don’t have this part,” (Wallace 504) but this is incorrect and only said so people can justify their cruel actions toward lobsters. Referring to, “What the Crow Knows,” by Ross Andersen, an essay about consciousness within animals, I was made aware of Jainism. Jainism is a religion from India that believers revolve their lives around making sure their impact keeps animals and ecosystems unbothered. Ross Andersen witnessed “Jain monks walking barefoot in the cool morning hours to avoid car travel, an activity they regard as irredeemably violent, given the damage it inflicts on living organisms” (Andersen 2). This quote presents a drastic difference in moral standards compared to the people that boil lobsters alive for their own enjoyment and the people that dedicate their lives to keeping animals undisturbed.  

A controversial topic presented in “Consider the Lobster” is whether a lobster can or cannot feel pain. David Foster Wallace states, “Lobsters do not, on the other hand, appear to have the equipment for making or absorbing natural opioids like endorphins and enkephalins, which are what more advanced nervous systems use to try to handle intense pain,” (Wallace 508) which leads us to wonder if the lack of natural opioids makes lobsters more vulnerable to pain or if it creates an absence of the intense pain sensations that the natural opioids are used to lessen the effect of. Pain is technically unmeasurable because it is a subjective mental experience but with a biological stance, we can use clues and context to get an idea of what can feel pain and what cannot. The most noticeable attribute that something is feeling pain is the reaction they responded to the stimulus with. If you pinch an arm of a human, they usually pull away and say, “ouch,” just like if a dog’s paw is stepped on, they will jolt away and yelp. Lobsters do not produce verbal noises but when they are forced into a boiling pot of water, they violently slash and claw at the sides of the pot. Referring to the essay, “What the Crow Knows” by Ross Andersen, there is an argument on consciousness in animals that is similar to the argument of pain in lobsters. Ross Andersen explains the stance Andrew Barron, a neuroscientist from Macquarie, has on consciousness, “He thinks structures in the bee brain integrate spatial information that is analogous to processes in the human midbrain. That may sound surprising, given that the honeybee brain contains only 1 million neurons to our brains’ 85 billion, but artificial intelligence research tells us that complex tasks can sometimes be executed by relatively simple neuronal circuits” (Andersen 8). This goes to show that just because a different species has a different neural structure as a human, they can still have similar processes.  

Killing animals for our own benefit has been a practice performed by humans for millions of years now. Animal meat is the best source of protein for our diet and hunting is a favored hobby to some.  Veganism is expensive, and it is more complex to nourish our bodies with the protein and nutrients we need for survival because of the inconvenience of finding affordable yet nutritional vegan food. Killing animals for their meat is not the issue, but how we kill them can be altered. There are ways to kill an animal to make it quick and painless. Take hunting for example, hunters aim for an animal’s head or chest region, and it only takes a gun shot or two. The most popular technique to kill a lobster is to boil it alive which causes the lobster to aggressively struggle once it hits the hot water. David Foster Wallace explained multiple ways a lobster can be killed quickly with as little as pain as possible but remaining at maximum freshness. One of the techniques was explained as, “drive a sharp heavy knife point-first into a spot just above the midpoint between the lobster’s eyestalks” (Wallace 507). This process may seem easy enough but to most lobster-eaters, they prefer to do even less work and just throw the live lobster into boiling water, even if it’s painful for the lobster.  

Pain and consciousness are unmeasurable, but internal morals have the power to allow humans to empathize with other species. No matter how we view the importance of an animal, they still have emotions and can feel pain. As humans, we should value all animals no matter if their neural structures are the same or different from ours. Humans are very intellectual creatures, and we have the ability to understand that lobsters can have emotions even if they cannot directly verbalize it.