Consider The Lobster Sparknotes

Consider the lobster is a philosophical commentary on the ethics of preparing and eating lobster using surprising juxtapositions of ideas that lead to fresh insight.

Wallace writes a philosophical commentary on the ethics of preparing and eating lobster. By asking questions, Wallace is getting into the morals of eating lobster. Because sometimes “there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions” (Wallace 10), questions like, “is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” (7) and “is the whole things just a matter of personal choice?” ( 7). Questions make the reader step back, and analyze or reevaluate their life. These questions focus the reader on thinking of their morals, which could be why

Wallace added questions into the commentary. The phrase, “gustatory pleasure” (7) is important as it’s asking if killing is worth one’s food pleasure.

There are a lot of adjective Wallace could have chosen, but he chooses “gustatory” (7) for a reason. That word focuses on a very small part of all pleasures, and in turn belittling that pleasure entirely. Wallace discusses what it takes to cook a lobster, and whether it’s a humane way to prepare or not. He points out that there are many ways, “drive a sharp heavy knife point-first” (12), “slow heating methods” (13), and “microwav[ing] them alive” (13) yet the most common method for preparing lobster to for the lobster to be “boiled alive” (10). On comparing the knife method and the boiling method, “[it] is said at least eliminate some of the cowardice involved in throwing a creature into a boiling water and fleeing the room” (12). The word “cowardice” (12) is used to emphasise that

humans do not have the heart to watch something die, Wallace is silently saying that us humans know it’s wrong to do this, but yet we do it anyways. Humans do not have the
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courage for “the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue” (10) for it’s “not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable” (10) Wallace also uses the verb “fleeing” to go along with the humans-can’t-handle-cooking-lobster theme. That sentence, in between the lines, is saying that humans know killing is morally wrong.
Wallace uses surprising juxtapositions of facts, ideas, and experiences that lead to fresh insight makes the reader care about aspects of the philosophical commentary of the ethics of eating and preparing lobster.

Wallace uses the contrast of the names of our meat to question our morals: “is it significant that “lobster,” “fish,” and “chicken” are our culture's words for both the animal and the meat, whereas most mammals seem to require euphemisms like “beef” and “pork” that help us separate the meat we eat” (11). Wallace compares two things from the everyday language and focuses the reader to question their ethics. It’s not a news that beef comes from cows and fish come from fish, it’s the insight and this new thought that makes the reader want to keep reading. Makes the reader want to see if there are any other old concepts that can be brought into a new light. And there is, it’s the experience of what the lobster go through while being boiled alive of “hear[ing] the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push [the cover of the pot] off” (11) for the lobster “behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water” (11). Wallace is giving us the same experience the lobster is going through, and it’s asking how us the reader would like

that.
Using questions and explaining different ways to prepare lobster, Wallace writes a philosophical commentary on the ethics of preparing and eating lobster and having the reader care by using surprising juxtapositions of ideas and the experiences of different word uses and putting the reader into the lobster's shoes, that lead to fresh insight.