Lobster, Again in Chapter 10

When reading Chapter 10 of the Bedford Book of Genres, which is titled “Assembling a Multi-genre Project”, I immediately thought of another piece we read for this class, “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace. While somewhat controversial due to its condescending nature, “Consider the Lobster” is an excellent example of a piece that is successfully composed while superseding genre lines. “Consider the Lobster” starts out as a personal narrative with Wallace describing his time at the Maine Lobster Festival. He details what happens at the festival as well as describing the history of the festival. Then there is a change of tune, Wallace shifts toward more of a research paper tone as he starts to develop the focal point of his essay, which is his opposition to the cooking of live lobsters. He builds his case by first explaining what lobsters are in terms of their taxonomical classification. He then connects this to his focal point by explaining that because of their anatomical structure lobsters might even feel more pain than humans. Ultimately, the main reason that Wallace’s piece is impressive to me is because it so seamlessly meshes several different genres together into the same project in an effective manner. The piece demonstrates many of the characteristics of a successful multi-genre project as outline in Chapter 10 of the Bedford Book of Genres.