Lobster Night

What if You Were a Lobster?
The story of lobster night is reflecting the transitioning process of Stacy from love for Noonan into killing him. In the first phase of the story, before talking about being struck by lightning, Stacy views the world from an optimistic side, she finds Noonan attractive. In the second part of the story, after talking about the incident of being struck by lightning, she starts to change and identifies the world from the animals’ point of views. She contends that talking about lightning strike makes her remember death, and being close to death makes her vulnerable and scared, which makes her merciful to the animal world. Especially in the moment when she looks into the tank and tries to understand the lobster,

and how it feels like to be in that position, she sees that lobsters are pure, unaware animals, which cannot protect themselves and unaware of their surroundings. In these two phases, Stacy becomes the guardian of the animals, and her realization of their lives makes the guardian to protect and take revenge for them.
In the story, there are two phases that Stacy is experiencing. The first one is her before talking about the incident to Noonan and after sharing it. Her remembering of the past changes her ideas about Noonan, and even makes her think about him in negative manners. First of all, Stacy is “seriously attracted to him,” even though he is married and 20 years older than Stacy. After talking about the incident “a glass wall between her and other people, especially Noonan” appears again. As a result, Stacy explicitly expresses her negative ideas about Noonan which shows that she becomes scared, isolated again.
The moment of remembering being struck by lightning, creates the idea of viewing the world from other creatures’ point. That makes Stacy merciful and as a result, she basically takes revenge from Noonan because of his cruel actions against animals. For example, Noonan shows Stacy how to cook a lobster in the lobster night, and he also cooks the lobster, the final one left in the tank, alive. Right before that, Stacy looks at the tank and tries to view the world from basic animal view: staying alive, not being eaten by other creatures. On the other hand, Noonan’s approach to cooking the lobster is enjoying how the lobster would struggle to come up and try to save its life. This particular part of the story initiates the guardian side of Stacy. Moreover, her realization of unawareness of animals, and their friendly intentions make her the guardian to protect them.
She becomes different in an emotional way, too since she becomes more sensible about treatment to the animals. For example, in the beginning of the story, “it oddly attracts her, this cruelty of Noonan”, after she speaks about her incident, “somehow everything changes” without Stacy knowing the reason why. This shows the emotional effect of her experience, because emotions control people in a way that they cannot understand.
In addition to that, Stacy develops her opposition against Noonan more and more even to the level where she wants to kill him.

At the end of the lobster night, when Noonan gets ready to eat the last lobster left in the tank, the bear that reminds him his revenge appears. This is the very important moment that persuades Stacy, as the guardian, to kill Noonan. Noonan’s extreme anger and his persistence of shooting the bear again and again right after the intention of cooking the lobster in a cruel manner makes Stacy more furious and full of revenge, even hatred. She is also affected by the idea that the bear just looks for food to feed its family and “stay alive.” Conversely, Noonan wants to kill the bear in the very first time to sell its skin and for fun even though he contends that he wants to protect himself. Bear just wants food from the pot, it does not attack Noonan. Moreover, when Noonan shoots the bear, and it looks for the source of the pain, which shows that animals are not smart enough to fight people, they are pure because of their dumbness compared to human beings. Stacy’s realization of pureness and good intent of animals makes her to take action, and kill the person fighting against the weak sides of

animals.
After Noonan kills the bear, Stacy is also affected by her colleague, Gail, who says “That is it for me” for the actions of Noonan, which has an emotional effect on Stacy.

Right after Gail’s expression, Stacy acts under the control of her emotions besides the guardian duty, shoots Noonan. After shooting Noonan “Never, never in her life had Stacy known the relief she felt at that moment.” Relief shows her emotional side. In addition, after killing him, she leaves the rifle next to the “broken remains of the lobster” which demonstrates that Noonan was guilty of making a pure animal suffer for no legitimate purpose and Stacy was aware of

that.
All in all, the story is about the change of Stacy through the realization of death, and what it means by remembering it again and again. She always wants to prevent talking about how it feels like to be struck by lightning because she believes; this would make her more vulnerable to death as she expresses “The only people who say lightning never strikes twice in the same place have never been struck once.” This also implies her isolation from the outer world. In the story, she tells what happened to her when she gets struck by lightning, and her life becomes miserable and isolated again. The reason behind that, when she speaks, she remembers and that makes her suffer again. She views people in a judgmental way; her view about death makes her more merciful to animals. In the end she shoots Noonan due to the differentiation process she goes through in her life, which is an unexpected end for a story that includes love for a person in the very beginning.