Consider the Lobster Analysis

In “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster, he writes about a valued tradition in New England of eating lobster. Lobsters are so popular there that they have large festivals celebrating them and feasting on them. However, in this article he writes mostly about how these festivals effect the lobster biologically and physically. Certain groups like PETA seem to have a problem in which the way lobsters are killed and have protest the festival many times to encourage others to stop eating them. People who do eat them seem to be ignorant as to how sensitive lobsters really are to pain. As he writes this, he is using Huxley’s second direction of writing towards the objective, historical facts, which is concrete. For example, when he is speaking about pain receptors in lobsters, he says “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.” There is nothing that can really be debated about this and exhibits logos as his argument is based on facts.

              When he chooses lobsters at his topic, he is picking something that people tend not to care about or notice. While these people at the lobster festival are enjoying their lobster rolls, they tend to forget that thousands of lobsters are being boiled alive. Although people know that this happens, they like to make themselves feel better and think that the lobsters are not evolved enough to feel pain. Although the author is not against the killing of lobsters for food, he just wants to bring up the problems associated with it and at least inform his readers of these issues before they eat a lobster again. This may not change whether they eat lobsters or not, but at least they will be educated on how a lobster functions and where their meal came from.  In doing so, his article was well formulated and entertaining to read. However, if there were some pictures to show the way that the lobsters were killed or where lobsters tend to live, this would be even better for the article.