Cruelty In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Rachel Carson is a noted biologist who studies biology, a branch of science addressing living organisms, yet she has written a book called Silent Spring to speak about the harmful effects of pesticides on nature. Carson doesn’t write about birds’ genetic and physical makeup, the role of them in the animal food chain, or even how to identify their unbelievable bird songs, yet strongly attests the fight for a well developed environment containing birds, humans, and insects is just and necessary. To Carson, the war for a natural environment is instantly essential for holding on to her true love for the study of biology. Thus Carson claims that whether it be a direct hit towards birds or an indirect hit towards humans and wildlife, farmers need to understand the effects and abandon the usage of pesticides in order to save the environment by appealing to officials, farmers, and Americans in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. She positions her defense by using rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questioning to establish logos, juxtaposing ideas, and using connotative and denotative diction.

In her essay “The Obligation to Endure”, Rachel Carson alerts the public to the dangers of modern industrial pollution. She writes about the harmful consequences of lethal materials being released into the environment. She uses horrifying evidence, a passionate tone, audience, and the overall structure of her essay to express to her readers that the pollution created by man wounds the earth. There are many different ways that pollution can harm the environment, from the nuclear explosions discharging toxic chemicals into the air, to the venomous pesticides sprayed on plants that kills vegetation and sickens cattle. The adjustments to these chemicals would take generations. Rachel

Rachel Carson is considered one of America's finest science and nature writers. She is best known for her 1962 book, Silent Spring, which is often credited with beginning the environmental movement in the United States. The book focussed on the uncontrolled and often indiscriminate use of pesticides, especially dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (commonly known as DDT), and the irreparable environmental damage caused by these chemicals. The public outcry Carson generated by the book motivated the U.S. Senate to form a committee to

After discovering this book through my AP Environmental Science class and my AP United States History class, I chose to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I have a strong passion for science. With that being said, I also have a yearning to develop a connection to the outside world. It seems that in today’s society, many individuals are ignorant to how the world functions and how living and nonliving organisms interact. However, it is not entirely these individuals’ fault. In fact, many people are not aware of how we, as a species, are able coexist in a world of many different beings—both abiotic and biotic. Therefore, in order to combat the status quo of subjective norms, I have read Silent Spring.

In this book, Carson is mainly mentioning about insecticide. She has been saying that spraying insecticide is harmful. In chapter four, she uses “endless cycle” (46) to describe that effect of insecticides will circulate. For instance, if DDT infected water it will cause fishes and fishes will be eaten by birds, mink, raccoons, and this will circulate forever. Furthermore, she has mentioned that “a heavy price to pay for the temporary destruction of a few insects, but a price that will continue to be exacted as long as we insist upon using chemicals” (198). Which means that effect of killing just tiny insects will last long. By saying that insecticides are harmful from different perspectives, such as water and soil and so on, what she really wants to say is that we are “sharing our earth with other creatures” (296). Therefore, we should not try to control or dominate nature but to have a symbiotic relationship with nature.

Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, challenged the way humans view the relationship between the chemicals we use and its effects on nature. Rachel Carson was able to paint a visual picture on how our world would look like if we continue to use the harmful chemicals that we do now. This was important in showing the reader the real dangers of the pesticides we use today. She explains the balance that needs to be had throughout our Earth and how pesticides greatly affect that balance. Throughout this book, Rachel Carson’s main theme was to explain importance of life, its effect on the environment, and how the human population can help preserve life with the power of knowledge and action.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is a revolutionary part of the environmentalist’s history. Caron’s last novel written, published in 1962, is a plea to the American people to look at what insecticides are doing to our nation, and with that, our earth. Her first chapter sets the scene, and brings readers to a fictitious city that all Americans can try to relate to by writing, “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. The birds, for example—where had they gone? It was a spring without voices.” (Carson 1-2) The reason behind the lack of birds is revealed to readers to be part of a larger problem in poisonous chemicals, in the form of insecticides, which hurt our ecosystem for a temporary fix to pests.

Environmentalism is the belief in which one advocates for environmental preservation. In Rachel Carson’s narrative Silent Spring, she gives her activist insight on the use of toxic chemicals for the benefit of humanity by exposing the detrimental effects these toxins bring. In comparison to Carson, I perceive myself to have developed my perception of nature through books however, my culture did not allow me to have a one on one interaction with nature. Carson fails to comprehend how traditional values potentially promote an anthropocentric ideology that attributes to the way humans treat the natural world. The author’s modes of argumentation mirror my own perception of nature only to a certain extent because she fails to mention the

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, first published in 1962, bright light to how the widespread use of chemical pesticides was posing a serious threat to public health and leading to the destruction of wildlife. While numerous philosophers have written on this topic throughout history, Rachel Carson did an excellent job at creating a more basic way for the general public to comprehend the troubles in the environment at the time. This book was no doubt in response to the increasing awareness in the 1960s of the effects that technology, industry, economic expansion and population growth were having on the environment. Carson's thesis that we were subjecting ourselves to slow poisoning by the misuse of chemical pesticides that polluted the

After World War II, the United States’ birthrate skyrocketed, and people found themselves living on the edge of parks and nature. The public began to question whether the government was working to preserve untouched land for future generations. When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the era of environmentalism was born. This movement “demanded the state not only preserve the Earth, but act to regulate and punish those who polluted it” (Farrah). The work on the pesticide poisoning of man sparked a powerful public

When Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, she focused mainly on how pesticides affected the environment. She looked at many different types of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides that caused great harm to everything within an environment. Trying to persuade scientists and officials about these issues that are caused by pesticides. This did a great job at communicating to the public back in the 1960’s, but in today’s world this book would not do a great job at communicating to the public, with the way technology is today. Also, back in the 1960’s this book did a great job at communicating to the public because it was easy to read and follow. Meaning that most people were able to understand the point that Carson was trying to make. Rachel Carson also illustrated the importance of both science and policy within her book, through the multiple examples that she presented in Silent Spring.

Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, challenged the reader’s perspective between the chemicals we use and its effects on nature. She explains that our world needs balance and pesticides greatly affect that balance. Throughout this book Rachel Carson’s main theme was to explain the importance of life, its effect on the environment, and how the human population can help preserve life with the power of knowledge and action. With all of the knowledge we have now, she instills in the reader that we must come together in order to save the environment because in the end, we’re dealing with life.

Carson emphasizes the hazards of parathion by exposing its fatal consequences, by invoking a need for its prevention. For example, Carson claims that the issue of blackbirds eating nearby cornfields could have been more benevolently solved, but farmers resorted to sending airplanes on a “mission of death.” Carson uses warlike imagery through the farmers’ intention for the planes to be used to spread parathion against the birds instead of for transportation..Her dramatic phrasing for the operation depicts danger more seriously than if she had used less stirring language such as ‘to spread the poison,’ bringing public attention to the graveness of the situation and therefore the need to act. Moreover, Carson goes on to state that parathion is “not a specific for blackbirds,” but a ‘universal killer,’ implying that the poison is a threat to almost everything including humans. By providing a detail in the issue that relates to humans directly, she gives even those indifferent

Carson wastes no time in characterizing farmers as murderers who target birds. When drawing attention to the fact that the “habit of killing grows” and farmers have adapted to “killing by poison,” she exposes the harsh practices of farmers. Carson also forces her readers to understand that these pesticides are really weapons, using phrasing such as “chains of poisoning” and “target of poisons.” Carson also adds that these poisons are “deadly” and trigger a “wave of death,” an example being in 1959 when farmers caused the death of “some 65,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings.” She is disgusted by these recurrences and sends a strong message to her audience that this must be stopped. Carson deliberately adds that these farmers act as if they are on a “mission of death” just waging a “needless war on blackbirds.” How outlandish, Carson reveals, is it for these grown men to act as if this is a balanced battle. Their actions are especially horrible because they took to killing with poison when “the problem could have been solved easily” with some agricultural changes. Carson characterizes farmers as murders to reveal that they are horrible for

　　Environmental problems caused by pesticides issues, which alarmed people shockingly by the book Silence Spring, written by Rachel Carson, need to be dealt with those two challenges. In the article “A Fable for Tomorrow” from the book Silence Spring, Rachel Carson assumes the probable consequences of overusing pesticides. She imagines a town where “all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.” Then, an unknown disaster sweeps through the town. The vegetables wither, livestock