"Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace

   The essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace, is a very well written article, about the inhumanities involved in eating that big, delicious, butter soaked piece of lobster that many people consider a delicacy. Wallace's audience is the readers of Gourmet magazine, 'foodies' if you will, who likely do not think twice about the food they are putting into their mouths. In his very educational story, he discusses everything from how the lobster is baited and harvested, how they are stored in the supermarket, and eventually the cruel ways in which the lobsters are cooked and eventually consumed.

     Wallace establishes his credibility, or ethos as a writer, by doing extensive amounts of research as well as some scientific research, including the depth at which lobsters are caught in the ocean, how the lobster's 'brain' works and even stating specific details about the large well-known and highly acclaimed Maine Lobster Festival (which Wallace considers comparable to a Roman circus or a medieval torture-fest), which is a festival dedicated to everything lobster; including the highly anticipated eating of the lobster.

     Logos is established by, again, the research he put into doing this essay. He displays it in a way that helps the reader to very easily understand and identify with his findings, and therefore understand his argument. For example, he very scientifically puts into words the way the lobster's body works on a cellular level, and explaining the lobster’s brain chemicals, and telling the reader that, since the lobster does not have a centralized nervous system they can feel pain, but their body cannot interpret the pain. As well as explaining that the lobsters migrate with changing water temperatures, and because they have highly developed hairs covering their body, and they can sense heat very easily. The question he presents is how, if the lobster is highly sensitive to temperature, is it humane to boil them until death, just so that they can be enjoyed by the human palate.

     The author establishes his pathos by appealing to the reader's emotion, by vividly describing the actions of the lobster when they are handed their fate by a human, who is placing them into a pot of boiling water. He explains how the lobsters grab onto the side of their holding container as they are being dumped into the pot of boiling water. They clink and scratch their claws on the lid of the vat of boiling water, appearing desperate to escape. Also, he points out that some people mistakenly put the lobsters in non-saltwater, therefore smothering the lobster to death; as it’s body cannot breathe in freshwater. He also describes how humans are trying to be more humane in how they kill, cook and prepare the lobster, such as stabbing them in the 'brain' with a knife, hoping to give the lobster a more merciful death. However, majority of a lobster's nerve bundles are "on the underside, from stem to stern, and disabling only the frontal ganglion does not normally result in a quick death or unconsciousness" (p 537). As well people who think that it would 'hurt' the lobster less if they would put it into cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, as their body would adjust to the temperature as it increases to the eventual 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Which, unfortunately, is not a humane way to cook the lobster either, as with this method of cooking lobster, the chef sees a “bonus set of convulsion like reactions that you don’t see in regular boiling” (p 237)?

     The message? Simply think about the food you are putting in your mouth, because it was, at one point in time, a living breathing creature.  All Wallace asks in his essay is for people to think about what you are about to eat; before you put their flesh into your mouth. He is not trying to convince the readers to become a vegetarian, vegan or even an advocate for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). His arguments are, in my opinion, very effective. He convinced me to do more than to think about the way lobsters are prepared before eating it, he also convinced me to not want to eat lobster at all.  I believe that they are very inhumanely killed/prepared. My dad is a hunter and has always butchered his kills. I grew up with eating, harvesting and killing animals as being a normal part of life. It was a necessity, a way to cheaply feed the family. Just as many states, including the gulf states who harvest shrimp and many other sea creatures to eat and even alligators to sell their skins and their meat, they do it to make a living. What's the difference between sea creatures and eating deer, pork or beef? Lobsters, as discussed above, are inhumanely prepared and killed, whereas deer, cattle and hogs are killed with a .22 in between the eyes. Mammals have a centralized nervous system, much like our own; getting shot point-blank in the head gives the animal a very quick death. Still painful, but the pain is so quick, and it is over before they knew what happened; and they typically die immediately. Wallace even states "when it comes to defending [the lobsters], even to myself, I have to acknowledge that I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, I like to eat certain kinds of animals, and would like to keep doing so" (p 540). Wallace self-discloses here, by telling his readers that while he feels sorry for the lobsters and how cruelly they are killed, he still likes to eat whatever he wants, including lobster if he so pleases.

References

Wallace, D. (2005). Consider the lobster. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp. 525-541).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Love of My Life - Cheryl Strayed

     Reflecting upon the essay “The Love of My Life” by Cheryl Strayed, I liked it, Much more so than the last essay we had to read. I found myself flying through the essay; I thought it was a very well written essay, and I also venture to say that she is a good author. According to Tracy Clark-Flory at salon.com, a book written by Strayed even inspired Oprah to restart her book club! The highlights in my mind while reading this story were the characters and their names, her thought about the imaginary boat and her gruesome nightmares.  The language used in the essay surprised me; I don’t mind it, because personally, I curse like a sailor. But this article was originally published in The Sun, no. 321 (September 2002). What a risky move to have an article published in such a public place, where not everyone ‘curses like a sailor’. There are several people reading magazines that do not use, or appreciate people using foul language. It was a gutsy move, but it works, it makes Strayed memorable, makes this essay memorable.

     I think it is interesting, how in the article, the author only actually gives names to one of her characters, her husband, Mark; otherwise she gave her characters names like ‘Actually Pretty Famous Drummer Guy’. I think that she is not naming them, so that she is not connected to them. If they don’t have names, they don’t exist in her mind or memory. She even states “The people I messed around with didn’t have names; they had titles” (p 502). Her relationship with Mark seems to be a great, picture-perfect one. He loves her, selflessly, he “just made me want to feel good, better. He loved me, but he loved my mother” (p 501). That was the one and only nail in the coffin of their relationship. I think that she couldn’t handle that connection. He is not only her husband, but he is a person who also loved her mother. He is that one constant, living reminder of her mother. They seem to have lots of love for each other, even through the cheating and lying. After Cheryl admits to cheating on Mark, they get separated and both started dating other people. Being the faithful and selfless husband he is written to be, Mark goes all the way to Portland, after Cheryl is living with a man who is ‘a Punk Rocker Soon to Be Hopelessly Held Under the Thumb of Heroin’, drags her home, and lets her stay at his house. And they end up hooking up again; and they both cheat on the people they are dating. But instead of being the young and in love couple, they turn into the ‘Insanely Young, Insanely Sad, and Insanely Messed-up Married Couple’.  Their relationship finally ends.

     Another thing I find interesting is how she says she has an idea of an imaginary boat of life. Where she wishes she could exchange the fate of her mother, for someone else. She wishes that she could just point her finger and make that person dead and her mother alive. She also wishes that she could take 4 people on a boat…those 4 people would be alive and with you, but only those 4 people, everyone else is gone, forever.  She states “it would be painful, but how quickly you would decide: you and you and you, get in. The rest of you, good-bye.” (p.504). That made me think, who would I take on my boat, she is right, what a hard decision. But at the same time, very easy, I know who I love so much and who I could live without.

     Lastly, I find it fascinating that she mentions that she had nightmares for months and years. Nightmares where she killed her mother. Multiple different scenarios, including how she tied her to a tree, and lit her on fire, how she buried her alive.  I, as a reader, wonder if all of these places and things in her murderous scenarios are something or someplace that was significant in her life. Something that reminded her of her mother, a memory in her life, branded in her subconscious, coming out in her dreams.

     Strayed wore her mother’s wedding ring, until one day, while swimming in an ice-cold river, she lost it. It fell off, and she was unable to find it. She then realizes that she was ‘married’ to her mother. And when she lost that wedding ring, she realizes that she was no longer married to her mother, and her grieving process ends.  In the essay she writes “I did not deny, I did not get angry. I didn’t bargain, become depressed or accept. I fucked, I sucked.”  (p 502) This whole long, grieving process is, not typical, but it still follows all of the phases of grievance. The 5 stages of grievance according to Julie Axelrod at psychcentral.com are, Denial and Isolation, Depression, Anger, Bargaining and Acceptance, not necessarily in that order. Strayed went through all 5 phases, all in her own unique way.  Denial and Isolation: where not even the author’s husband can comfort her, she just wants to be alone. Depression: where she is having sex with a lot of people, for the sole purpose to make herself feel good, and happy. Bargaining: her imaginary boat, and how she wishes she could switch her mother’s death for her some one else’s. Anger: both her nightmares and her sleeping around, to forget everything else but that one thing in that one moment. And finally Acceptance: where she loses her mother’s ring, and finally she accepts the fact that her mother is dead, and simply “drove away from a part of my mother” (p 513).

References

Axelrod, J. (2010). The 5 Stages of Loss and Greif. Psych Central. Retrieved from:
     http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

Clark-Flory, T. (2012).  Cheryl Strayed: “Tackle love”. Salon. Retrieved from:
     http://salon.com/2012/07/08/cheryl_strayed_tackle_love/

Strayed, C. (2002). The Love of My Life. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology
     of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp.28-42).  New York, NY:
     Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Eula Biss' The Pain Scale.

     In a recent assignment, we were instructed to read and critique Eula Biss' "The Pain Scale", a short, non-fiction narrative about one woman's experience of living with chronic pain. I immediately thought, 'Hey, I'm a trauma nurse; I give loads and loads of pain medication every day....I got this in the bag'. Eh, not so much. Let's discuss my biases about chronic pain as a nurse, and how it relates to the nursing profession. As well as the fact that she can't assign a number to her pain, how severe her pain really is to her, and some internet research that I compiled on The Pain Scale.

      In nursing, when you hear in report about a patient, one of these things listed as a secondary diagnosis; chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain syndrome...you immediately think to yourself, 'oh boy, another pain issue'. However, after reading this essay my views have remained about the same and that is what I call "fuzzy”. For example, my grandmother has a chronic pain problem, in November she was diagnosed with a compression fracture in her back at the T5 level. A compression fracture is usually the result of a traumatic injury to the spine; however, my grandmother has osteoporosis. Her compression fracture has been a result of the force of gravity pushing on her, causing a thoracic spine vertebrae to compress and fracture. This has caused her excruciating pain, caused her to lose 40 pounds because the pain is making her depressed and have no appetite. There is a physical reason why she is experiencing pain, there is proof of pain. This is where things get fuzzy for me. Eula Biss experiences pain that does not have a physical reason. There is no proof of pain, there is just pain. In class we discussed that Biss even questions her sanity, because it is a type of pain that is inexplicable. She questions if this pain really exists, because there is no proof of it on x-ray or blood tests. As stated in the essay, a doctor once told Biss "We have reason to believe you are in pain, even if there is no physical evidence of your pain" (pp 39). The doctors at the Mayo Clinic even suggest that the pain she experiences is similar to the phantom pain phenomenon. A explainable phenomenon experienced by some amputees, in which they experience pain on the part of the extremity just amputated.  In healthcare, we tend to not believe things, unless there is proof that thing does exist.

     One of the first things that you learn in nursing school is "pain is what the patient says it is". What my teacher meant by that is that pain is subjective. The only person who knows what your pain feels like is you. No one else can feel your pain, even if they have had the exact same accident, and has the exact same injuries and fractures, only you can tell how that feels to you. Someone might think that breaking a toe is the most painful thing, and rates it 10/10. Others can literally have their legs crushed under a car, and only rate their pain a 7/10.  Personally I have a hard time assigning a number to pain. I have never experienced anything that is close to the worst pain imaginable, so I have a hard time rating what would be even half of that. Is my broken heel that I stand on and work for 12 hours a day on 3 days a week, half of what it would feel like to be run over by a bus? I don't know what it feels like to be ran over by a bus, so I can't assign that pain a number, and as a result of that, I also can't assign my fractured heel pain a number. In the essay, Biss writes that the worst pain imaginable for her is "burning alive", so she assigns her pain "thirty percent of the pain she feels burning alive would feel like". Then her father says a three is nothing, just a "go home and take two Aspirin kind of pain" (pp.33). It seems like Biss and I have the same problem assigning a number to the pain. Biss also has a hard time understanding how to appropriately use the pain scale, it’s no wonder, if you can’t fathom to what extent your pain is; how can you use a number based scale? However, she also states that "I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant" (pp.39). 

     When I Googled "Eula Biss, The Pain Scale" many, many results were returned. In this blog, the writer agrees with my ideas on pain by stating "who are we to judge the intensity of pain another person is feeling?  Pain cannot be shared or transferred, so the only person who truly knows how bad the pain is the person who is experiencing it." (Easterling, B. 2011) In the essay Ms. Biss explains with very emphatic detail the way she experiences pain, comparing it to Hell and Dante's Inferno.  I think Biss is trying to describe her pain as her own living hell. She refers to a wind strength scale used to measure hurricanes to measure her pain, but she never actually gives a number to her pain. As a reader, I do have empathy for her, as she states she would rather cut off her finger in exchange for the chronic pain she experiences on a daily basis, and even has a flitting thought about suicide.That puts into perspective just how severe she thinks her pain is. Isn’t it ironic how when people are in an extreme amount of pain, they will cause themselves more pain and problems just to end, or even decrease, that pain. Not only is Biss in physical pain, but also spiritual, mental and emotional pain.  As I mentioned earlier my grandmother suffers from chronic pain and on countless occasions, I have heard my grandmother say to my grandfather, “just drop me off on the highway and I’ll step in front of a semi and end this pain. That is just selfish, in situations when people think suicide is the ‘only option left’, they are thinking of themselves and their pain. They are not thinking about their family and friends who would be devastated if they were suddenly and tragically taken from their lives. There is always ways to medicate and help to treat pain, there is no way to replace a family member or friend.

    I don't like the style in which this essay was written, I find it hard to follow. It’s like there was no plan of action on how to organize this essay, just going from one idea to another. I found myself having to go back and re-read most of it, because I would lose focus. Then I came across this blog that states that “The quick thought changes, while seemingly ‘all over the place’ all correlate to one cohesive internal dilemma that fights within Biss.” (Bee, L. 2012). Thinking about it like that puts the way the story was written into a completely different picture, and I whole heartedly agree with the writer of that blog. Now that the 'bug has been put in my ear', it makes so much sense as to why it was written the way it was. It is actually very well organized into an argument between the author and herself.  This is an article I thought I would breeze right through and it would be a really easy assignment to complete. Now that I have read “The Pain Scale” I have learned a bit more about how people with chronic pain feel. I am still “fuzzy” on chronic pain; as to the etiology of it, and the way it manifests without signs and symptoms. However, after reading this article, I can have far more empathy and even sympathy for the patient with chronic, unexplainable pain; as well as being able to understand a little more about how the patient is feeling on the inside. They may not verbalize their feelings about the way this pain is literally controlling their every move. I can have more compassion for the way my patients with chronic pain, or fibromyalgia feel, how much they actually do hurt, even if we can’t see it on an x-ray, or there is not pathophysiology for their pain. They may be having a lifelong internal battle, and be quietly suffering and not telling anyone, it’s no wonder a secondary diagnosis of chronic pain or fibromyalgia is accompanied with depression and anxiety. 


                                           
                                                         References

Bee, L. (2012). On Eula Biss's "the Pain Scale". Literary Musings. Retrieved

     from http://laneybranchlikeatree.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/on-eula-    

     bisss-the-pain-scale/

Biss, E. (2005). The Pain Scale. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.),  

    Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work

     from 1970 to present (pp.28-42).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Easterling, B. (2011). Eula Biss' "The Pain Scale". ENC 1102. Retrieved from

     http://brianna-easterling.blogspot.com/2011/09/eula-biss-pain-scale.html