The Envious Lobster

The Envious Lobster

By Hannah Flagg Gould
Annotations by Karen L. Kilcup
Colored image of American Lobster (1890). Alfred Edmund Brehm. Public domain.
Langouste~American Lobster (1890). Alfred Edmund Brehm. Public domain.

For Parley’s Magazine.
THE ENVIOUS LOBSTER.
A fable–by Miss Gould.

A lobster from the water came,
And saw another, just the same
In form and size, but gayly clad
In scarlet clothing; while she had
No other clothing on her back,
Than her old suit of greenish black. [1]

“So ho!” she cried, “’tis very fine!
Your dress was yesterday, like mine,
And in the mud below the sea,
You lived, a crawling thing, like me.
But now, because you’ve come ashore
You’ve grown so proud, that what you wore,
Your strong old suit of bottle-green,
You think improper to be seen!
To tell the truth, I don’t see why
You should be better dressed than I;
And I should like a suit of red
As bright as yours, from feet to head.
I think I’m quite as good as you;
And I’ll be dressed in scarlet, too!”[2]

“Will you be boiled,” her owner said,
“To be arrayed in glowing red?
Come here, my discontented Miss,
And hear the scalding kettle hiss!
Will you go in, and there be boiled
To have your dress, so old and soiled,
Exchanged for one of scarlet hue?”

“Yes,” cried the lobster, “that I’ll do,
And thrice as much, if needs must be
To be as gayly clad as she!”
Then, in she made a fatal dive
And never more was seen alive.
Now, those who learn the lobster’s fate,
Will see how envy could create
A vain desire within her breast
And pride of dress could do the rest,
That brought her to an early death
’Twas love of show that cost her breath.

Parley’s Magazine 1 (March 1833): 389. Reprinted in Mrs. H. F. Gould, Poems, vol. 3. (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1841) , 100-1.

[1] American lobsters are normally this color. Lobstermen occasionally catch a blue lobster.

[2] Lobsters turn red when boiled.

Contexts

The daughter of an American Revolutionary War soldier to whom she was close throughout her life, Hannah Flagg Gould was among the most famous and popular antebellum poets for both adults and children. The author of fiction as well, he was one of ten children, and she never married. When she was young, her father moved the family to Newburyport, Massachusetts, a thriving port city north of Boston that would become a center of abolitionist activism led by the fiery William Lloyd Garrison. Born and raised in the town, Garrison was supported by such luminaries as Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who commanded the first federally authorized black Civil War regiment, the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, and poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who lived in nearby Amesbury. Part of this group’s activism probably derived from Newburyport’s participation in the Atlantic slave trade, which supported the town’s early development.

“The Envious Lobster” offers both a moral tale and a natural history lesson. Like many poems of this era, it uses a dialogue to convey its messages.

Resources for Further Study

Gould, Miss H. F. Poems. 3 vols. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1836-1841.

Gould, Hannah Flagg. The Youth’s Coronal. New-York: D. Appleton, 1851. The Youth’s Coronal. Project Gutenberg, 2004.

Gray, Janet. “Hannah F. Gould.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers. A short biography with excerpts from an important review of Gould’s work by Sarah Josepha Hale.

——. Race and Time: American Women’s Poetics from Antislavery to Racial Modernity. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004. Contains analysis of Gould’s work, especially her antislavery poetry. “Hannah F. Gould, 1789-1865.” Poetry Foundation. A short biography and links to poems

Pedagogy

Fall Poems for the Classroom: Autumn Poetry and Recitals for Teachers.” apples4theteacher: An Educational Resource Site for Teachers and Homeschoolers. Highlights Gould’s poem “Jack Frost.”

Hannah Flagg Gould.” Poems. Discover Poetry. Has five poems appropriate for younger readers, with apparatus for measuring memorization.

Lobster.” Brittanica. Not all readers will be familiar with lobsters. This site has pictures, videos, and links describing the various lobster species and their native environments.

American Lobster.” National Geographic.

Contemporary Connections

The lobster was for many years harvested in New York and southern New England waters as well as in Maine, the place most people associate it with. Climate change has decimated the population in its southern range, and lobsters have increasingly moved north to cooler waters. Low oxygen levels and ocean acidification have also affected lobster populations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests that as the climate changes, the crustacean may continue to move north into Canadian waters.

Greenhalgh, Emily. “Climate and Lobsters.” Climate.gov.

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