Before reading this essay, I was immediately intrigued by the title, “Consider the Lobster”. Unsure of its context, I was honestly shocked that the essay was indeed about lobsters. I thought it would have been some metaphorical story about humans, but no, it was about actual lobsters. As someone who has never heard of or attended the Maine Lobster Festival, it was interesting to learn about how insane it actually is. He’s writing this piece for a “gourmet” food magazine, which is understandable since lobster is seen as a more luxurious seafood. Wallace’s writing is very effective in describing all the elements of the festival, making it easy to visualize and understand how he was feeling while in attendance. I also found his footnotes very entertaining and informative to the entirety of the essay. It allowed Wallace to almost have side conversations with the reader, getting more of his personal flare. While Wallace did give a thorough and genuine description of the Maine Lobster Festival, I did not expect the topic to shift into the ethics of eating lobsters. It was really smart of him to engage the reader with the opening section, to then be able to address the importance of his essay. As someone who was fascinated by the lobster tanks at the supermarket or Red Lobster itself, it makes me sad how the whole cooking process occurs. While I’m not a vegetarian myself, I was still uncomfortable hearing Wallace describe the treatment of lobsters before being eaten. A quote from the section about boiling the lobsters really stuck in my head in saying, “The lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook it’s claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof… 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.” Not only is that very graphic, but it really makes you consider the lobster in this situation and think about your own personal feelings towards animal treatment and moral ethics in general.