Lobster is both the subject of the essay as well as a symbol of what Wallace wishes to explore. Though “everyone knows what a lobster is,” the lobster means something different to him than it does to the groups he mentions in the text: the readers of Gourmet, Maine locals, and the members of PETA (236). The tension between what each person thinks of lobster as is at the heart of the essay because it reveals the complexity of morality and justifications for certain behaviors in a complicated world.

The readers of Gourmet see the lobster as “good eating,” while the locals in Maine see it as vital part of their economy (237). Of course, even that gets complicated when Wallace notes the wealthy “demilocal” who lives in Maine only seasonally and tends to see the lobster more like the readers of Gourmet do (243). PETA sees the lobster as an animal worth saving and the cooking of lobster as being abjectly cruel. To Wallace, the lobster is all of those things. While lobsters are “basically giant sea insects,” Wallace does think they taste good or at least agrees that society currently values them for their taste, even if that's a relatively recent phenomenon (237).