Lobster

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Recommended: Bond between animals and humans

Someone walks into a fancy seafood restaurant, he/she would usually get some sort of lobster-oriented dish. Lobster is just food to many people and those people do not think much about the fact that those lobsters that they are eating were once living creatures. “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace talks about lobsters during the Maine Lobster Festival. PETA is also brought into the piece as they dispute the cooks who think lobsters do not feel anything while being boiled alive. Lobsters are living creatures just as humans are, but are almost only considered high class foods.
David Foster Wallace starts off “Consider the Lobster” with the Maine Lobster Festival and why it is such a big thing during the summer time. Tourism and lobsters are two of the famous things in Maine so a festival is there to expand the tourism. The MLF introduces a lot of lobster dishes to the tourists who go to Maine and discover new things. There is a special dish called the “quarter” that is one of the main dishes at the Maine Lobster Festival. There is also a giant lobster cooker at that festival that can cook multiple lobsters at the same time. The cooker is out in the public so the people can watch their lobsters boil as they wait for their dishes to be made. The Lobster Festival is obviously about lobsters, as well as eating lobsters. However, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) do not think too fondly of the festival because of the number of lobsters that are being killed and turned into lobster dishes.
In “Consider the Lobster,” Wallace continues to explain the process of cooking lobster and mentions that the creatures have pain receptors that are not a part of their brains. “Some cooks’ practice is to drive a sharp ...

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...his piece, he brings in PETA and their opinions on the Maine Lobster Festival and how the festival are being cruel to the lobsters. However, PETA blindly says the MLF is causing animal cruelty to the lobsters without taking in the benefits that the festival brings. The festival helps balance the ecology of the environment where the lobsters live. If the lobster population continues to grow and overpopulate the sea, the food chain of that area will be disrupted and there will be disorder. That disorder can continue to spread if nothing is being done. In the end, PETA is in the wrong because the Maine Lobster Festival has its own reasons of existing but at the same time, they’re helping the ecology of the sea balance out. So, will PETA still continue to call out the animal cruelty or will they finally realize that the balanced ecology practically depends on the MFL?

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