> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.writerscience.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Nerve Stem: Making the Argument in a Metaphor in DFW's Consider the Lobster
- URL: https://www.writerscience.com/the-nerve-stem-making-the-argument-in-a-metaphor-in-dfws-consider-the-lobster/
- Published: 2026-07-20T03:14:33.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-20T03:14:33.000Z
- Description: That's the important thing about metaphor: it's not enough to simply link one thing to another thing; it's important that the second thing modifies or enhances our understanding of the first thing, so that the reader's voyage from things 1 to 2 is worth it.
- Author: William Fitzpatrick
- Tags: metaphor, Creative Nonfiction, David Foster Wallace

Right in the opening line to Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace packs his whole argument into a single metaphor.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/aa/f7aa3c65-921e-4428-a626-8a5e9beaab66/content/images/2026/07/image-3.png)

By conflating the lobster industry with a nervous system, DFW makes the case upon which the rest of the essay expands: that we ignore animal suffering for the sake of social convention.  
  
Masterful use of a literary technique in nonfiction, going beyond mere description to packaging the essay's entire thesis into a single image.  
  
That's the important thing about metaphor: it's not enough to simply link one thing to another thing; it's important that the second thing modifies or enhances our understanding of the first thing, so that the reader's voyage from things 1 to 2 is worth it.