Blog Post #5: Consider the Lobster

I want to begin by saying that I found David Foster Wallace's piece very interesting and well written. The ethics of eating or boiling lobster are most certainly relevant to the purpose of the article, and the way Wallace presents it is fair, balanced, and informed. I do feel a bit like this ethical question (with no definitive answer) in a way dominates or overshadows the piece. Taking up just about half of the article, I worry that although I found Wallace's argument and discussion interesting, the target audience didn't quite match up with the people who would be reading the Gourmet magazine. I have a hard time believing that the people who would be reading Gourmet would expect or want to read an article which largely consists of a moral dilemma. Because Gourmet often features fancy food and wines, many of the readers would be out of touch or be unsettled at Wallace's descriptions of the 'suffering' lobsters endure when boiled alive. As a reader I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, but as I said before I worry that the genre of this piece is ill-fitted to a magazine such as Gourmet and its readers. Reading this piece and reflecting made me more conscious to think about how my writing will be received and the appropriate genre to use.