In “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace goes into detail about the different ways of preparing a lobster and which way is most commonly used. “As an a la carte entree, lobster can be baked, broiled, steamed, grilled, sautéed, grilled, stir-fried, or microwaved. The most common method, though, is boiling. If you’re someone who enjoys having lobster at home, this is probably the way you do it, since boiling is so easy.” This explains all the different ways to cook lobster, which is useful for this piece because he later goes into the ethics of boiling lobster alive. People claim that boiling lobster’s alive is okay because they don’t feel pain, “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple… There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain.” This means that they assume that since lobster’s don’t have the cerebral cortex, then they must not feel pain. But DFW contradicts this claim, “The human cerebral cortex is the brain-part that deals with higher faculties like reason, metaphysical self-awareness, language, etc. Pain reception is known to be part of a much older and more primitive system of nociceptors and prostaglandins that are managed y the brain stem and thalamus.” This explains that the cerebral cortex actually isn’t the part of the brain that senses pain, so the fact that lobsters don’t have it is meaningless.

I don’t believe it’s morally okay to boil lobsters alive, neither do I think it’s okay to slaughter animals. However, this won’t stop me from eating these animals. I have never had lobster, so I can say that I have never boiled a lobster alive. But I eat and very much enjoy meat… Does that make the slaughtering okay? No. But I do believe in the fact of not seeing it helps with the coping. I refuse to watch any videos that show the truth behind slaughter houses or anything like that, because I enjoy meat. If I was to watch them, I would feel different about eating meat.

I did not like his footnotes. The short ones were okay, because they were short, sweet, to the point and connected well with text. However, the long paragraph and a half length ones were wordy, confusing, and seemed irrelevant to me.

The similarities I noticed between this reading and “This is Water,” was the confusing wording and run-on sentences. Other than that, the two texts were nothing alike. The messages were completely different, this text was more boring.