During our fishbowl discussion on the poem "Lobsters", many different views on the symbolic meaning were given. The idea that stood out to me the most was not that the lobsters and their lives were a parallel to a person's life, (because that was what I had gotten out of the poem), but that the lobster's careless, almost absent-minded movement could be compared to a human bumbling through life, completely unaware of their surroundings and the inevitability of their death.
I had what I thought was an insightful view of the first and last stanzas, but the second that talked about their "somnambulist"-like movements confused me for the most part. The comparison between crustaceans and sleep walkers seemed nothing short of random. But, once that connection was made, the whole poem seemed to make much more of a statement. Now, not only were people carelessly buying a killing living creatures whose existence was horribly similar to their own, but now people were going through life with a blissful ignorance to their own mortality. I suppose ignorance is bliss... but this whole poem just makes you feel like the most unenlightened species, doesn't it?
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