This article is very well-written, originally, partly exhilarating and thought-provoking at the same time. In a first part, Wallace is examining one of the biggest sea food festivals of the United States, the Maine Lobster Festival. He makes cynical comments about people’s behaviour during such festivals. However, the article continuously becomes more serious.
Wallace starts his determined inquiry into the in ethics of boiling lobsters alive by giving some background information about the lobster itself and how we usually don’t see him- as a insect living in the ocean. Later he is discussing how lobsters are cooked which was very unsettling to me. Of course did I know that lobsters are boiled alive, but the way he describes how these animals suffer from being boiled does not miss the effect and made me feel uncomfortable. He writes:
“However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to 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. And worse is when the lobster fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off… The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you and I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).”
So, Wallace intends to offer a very graphic picture of how the lobster suffers when boiled and intensifies our feelings by stating that we would behave the same way in case somebody places us into boiling water. Finally, he asks the reader if it is possible that “future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices?” Maybe this comparison far-fetched, however, we should consider how we deal with animals more often.
Wallace starts his determined inquiry into the in ethics of boiling lobsters alive by giving some background information about the lobster itself and how we usually don’t see him- as a insect living in the ocean. Later he is discussing how lobsters are cooked which was very unsettling to me. Of course did I know that lobsters are boiled alive, but the way he describes how these animals suffer from being boiled does not miss the effect and made me feel uncomfortable. He writes:
“However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to 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. And worse is when the lobster fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off… The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you and I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).”
So, Wallace intends to offer a very graphic picture of how the lobster suffers when boiled and intensifies our feelings by stating that we would behave the same way in case somebody places us into boiling water. Finally, he asks the reader if it is possible that “future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices?” Maybe this comparison far-fetched, however, we should consider how we deal with animals more often.
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