Journal 1 consider the lobster
Julia Moura
Jesse Miller
English 110
22 January 2019
“Consider the Lobster”
- The essay “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace left me with a lot of thoughts and questions on my eating habits. The essay leads the audience to question their carnivorous ways of eating, focusing on the inhumanity of it. I do have numerous questions I would want to ask him about the excerpt though. For instance, why he decided to focus on the certain aspects he did in the reading, such as the negativity of eating lobster and the pain it may cause them. Also, I would want to ask him how he feels himself about eating lobster as well as other creatures and animals. It is difficult to see because from this reading you wonder if he was a vegetarian or vegan who doesn’t believe in the cruelty of harming and eating animals. Lastly, I want to know why he included the fun, exciting aspects of the festival itself, because I feel as though it may have taken away from the argument.
- Writing a written discussion provides you with a way to get your ideas out there for people to read and evaluate. This will make people think and question themselves on the topic at hand. There are many fallbacks to a written discussion though. When the audience is reading the discussion, they may come up with questions that they may never get answered, which can weaken the writer’s argument. Another issue with written discussion is that it is not at all conversational, so it is difficult to acknowledge the other side. If I were to write a written discussion, I would try to anticipate my audiences’ questions. I would do this by looking into facts of what the other side may believe and explain the opposing view. I would also include a variety of rhetorical questions and other questions that I could answer within the document.
Julia Moura
Prof. Jesse Miller
English 110- G
25 February 2019
Journal #10
Passage #1.
Page 4 paragraph 2
Agree
This paragraph introduces Pollan’s main idea of the fact that cooking nowadays is not real cooking, and that it is underappreciated and there is more of a lazy feel to cooking. It discusses how the average time for Americans’ to cook nowadays is about 30 minutes including clean up. This is a small number that merely steps even remotely neat the time that Julia Child spent on her cooking on her show. She spent at least double the time preparing her dishes as did most people in the past. Nowadays, it is more about the idea that many individuals are enjoying watching cooking shows and eating microwaved dinners rather than spending the time to cook the food themselves. Mostly, most people say they do not have enough time to cook but yet, they have plenty of time to watch television for an hour or more about cooking. During all of this time spent doing nothing, they could have been preparing themselves a meal similar to that on television.
Passage #2.
Page 8 paragraph 1
Complicated response
This paragraph mainly discusses a quote from Harry Balzer, a food-marketing researcher. He mentions an analogy. One that discusses how much work was put into food back in the olden days. This meaning that back in the past, people used to have to do everything. There was no going to the grocery store and picking up a chicken. This discussion is about how they used to have to go out there in the wild and kill a chicken themselves they then had to go through the process of plucking the feathers and gutting the chicken themselves. This sometimes meant it was there only way for survival. To move off that even, after all of this they still had to prepare and cook the chicken themselves. Nowadays, it is difficult to even just go to the grocery store and buy a chicken that all you must do is marinate and cook. They even have rotisserie chickens that are fully prepared and cooked for your liking. This all connects to the overall theme of the passage because it brings in the realism of cooking today versus cooking from the past.
Passage #3
Page 16 paragraph 2
Agree
This paragraph brings in an extremely interesting connection between most of the points within the overall article. I love the aspect of bringing in the maybe question. It almost gets the reader to think about solidifying an opinion on the subject at hand and makes them question themselves. It discusses the paradox and how it might not be how it seems at all. In fact, it discusses that maybe we throw ourselves into watching these cooking shows because we miss the aspect of cooking ourselves. Which would be easily understandable. The interesting point though is that Pollan brings in that maybe we do not cook more now because we don’t believe we have time. But, if we have time and make time for television programs than why don’t we compare this time in any other way. If it is true that cooking is something we so desperately want back in our lives, and not completely go away than why don’t we make the time for it? Why is it not a priority for most people today? I must wonder if its due to the convenience that now comes with prepared meals and food as well as fast food restaurants that take 5 minutes to give you food.
