Jeremy Roshau
P. 1
Rhetorical Analysis
In his essay Consider the Lobster, it’s apparent what David Foster Wallace is
trying to tell his audience: we should really think about the lobster’s point of view
before consuming it. David Foster Wallace uses a multitude of rhetorical strategies
to get his point across, including pathos and ethos. His essay is ingenious in how it
gets its point across, and how it forces even the largest lobster consumers to truly
contemplate how the lobster might react to its consumption. It brings up many
controversial topics of animal rights that many people tend to avoid, especially
people who are major carnivores. Wallace’s use of rhetorical strategies really gets
the reader thinking, and thoroughly captures the argument of many vegetarians
against the consumption of animals.
David Foster Wallace really captures the use of pathos in his essay Consider
the Lobster, and uses it in a way that is incredibly convincing to the reader. For
example, he compares the Maine Lobster Festival to how a Nebraska Beef Festival
could be, stating, “at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the
live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there…” Playing off of
people’s natural tendency to feel bad for the cattle, he shows that the killing of
lobster is, in reality, no different than the killing of cattle, yet we treat it much
differently. We tend to think that lobsters are different because they are less human
than cows are, and, maybe to make us feel better about our senseless killing of an
animal, that they feel no pain when slaughtered. Again, Wallace uses pathos to tug
at the heartstrings of the reader, when he says, “The lobster will sometimes 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.” This horrifying metaphor really
shows how inhumane the general cooking method can seem when looked at
through this lens. This metaphor puts the reader into the position of the lobster,
making people feel bad. Wallace proves his point further when he mentions that
“the lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we
were plunged into boiling water.” Comparing an animal most people consider food
so closely to human interaction is an incredibly effective method. People can truly
feel for the lobster that is being cooked alive, and may change their view of lobster
cooking totally different. Using people’s emotion to ponder lobsters, and what they
go through in the process of cooking, was an ingenious way of getting his point
across.
Another way David Foster Wallace gets his point across to his audience is his
use of ethos. During the first half of the essay, where he described the MLF,
Wallace talked mainly in the first person, but in the second half, when discussing
animal rights, he talked in the third person. This allowed him to distance himself
from the reader, and establish himself as an authority, as he is not an authority on
cooking or lobster festivals, but rather one on animal rights. Wallace also states
that “It is difficult not to sense that they're unhappy, or frightened, even if it's some
rudimentary version of these feelings,” showing his knowledge of the way lobsters
react to the pot of boiling water. Also he says “even if it's some rudimentary
version of these feelings and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it?”
showing that we shouldn’t base whether or not we should treat them better based
on what the pain level they feel. No matter what pain level is felt, from high to low,
we should change what we are doing to accommodate the lobster. Through his
prior knowledge and what he knew before, David Foster Wallace proves his point
that lobsters do need to be treated better than they are at the moment.
Using multitude of rhetorical strategies, David Foster Wallace proves that the
way we treat animals is inhumane. His use of both ethos and pathos is incredibly
convincing and shows how ingenious the essay really is. Also, his uses of
metaphors really bring the audience into the perspective of the lobster. They make
you truly mull over whether or not the way we treat animals that we kill is the real
way we should be going about it. Every bit of detail in the essay really makes you
consider the lobster.