Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

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.

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

The following involves the second chapter of Carson’s book, Silent Spring that was written in 1962. In this chapter Carson argues persuasively the adverse impacts of pesticides upon the environment and the risks on human health and the environment associated with these “genetic invaders” (Carson, 1962). Many of the extremely diverse people from Carson’s audience targeted were under the impression that chemicals like DDT, at that time in history, were safe for their health. Carson reconciles and attempts to persuade the public to consider the idea that DDT, which in the 1950s and 60s was one of the many chemical pesticides being manufactured and sold to

In the mid-20th century, farmers used a toxic insecticide named parathion in an attempt to control pests detrimental to their crops. Rachel Carson was a biologist who wrote pamphlets (Lear) on conservation and natural resources designed to inform people on the beauty of the living world. In an excerpt from her 1962 work Silent Spring, Carson calls upon the public to take action against the use of parathion by highlighting its catastrophic nature and vilifying the agricultural community for their negligence.

Poisons such as parathion are known as universal killers, which kills thousands of wildlife each year. In the book, Silent Spring, written by a noted biologist Rachel Carson, she argues that deadly poisons, that are meant to kill annoying creatures, are a hazard to the humans, domestic animals, as well as wildlife. She also argues that farmers are ignorant to the radiating damage of the poisons like parathion, which can cause long-term effects on both humans and the environment. She argues that through the use of dark and war-like diction, characterization, as well as rhetorical questions.

Silent Spring describes a peaceful farming town changing, “mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died.. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients.” (135) Even after a massive propaganda campaign by chemical companies advertising the benefits of pesticides, Kennedy states that Silent Spring the only popular dependable information of these chemicals, as government research backed up main catastrophes in the novel. Nearly every country which silent spring was published held environmental hearings and its influence is said to be compared to that of The Jungle.

From the dawn of humanity, nature has been sacrificed for the sake of progression. Forests are chopped down and paved with concrete, while everyday scientists work to enhance species chosen as beneficial while killing those thought of as nuisances. By the mid 20th century, this had become an accepted and encouraged faucet of life, that is, until biologist by the name of Rachel Carson published Silent Springs, a book dedicated to stopping the mass extermination of blackbirds. Through carefully constructed arguments and rhetoric, the novel was able to transform the American mindset of their view on nature. Therefore, Rachel Carson uses figurative language and appeals in order to portray the mass spraying of wildland as harmful.

Carson’s other books, Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us (which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks), and The Edge of The Sea all focus on nature’s strength and the inter-connectedness of nature and all living things. But DDT exposed the vulnerability of nature and I think this influenced the writing of Silent Spring. DDT was the most powerful pesticide in the world at the time of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Unlike most pesticides, whose effectiveness is limited to destroying one or two types of insects, DDT was capable of killing hundreds of different kinds at once. Developed in 1939, it first distinguished itself during World War II, clearing South Pacific islands of malaria-causing insects for U.S. troops, while in Europe being used as an effective de-lousing powder. Its inventor was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Many people have questioned a lot of the government’s actions dealing with chemicals in general. Pesticides have been a popular topic since the realization that these chemicals were poisoning the earth. Rachel Carson led this extremely controversial environmental movement with her book Silent Spring in 1962. The book The Gentle Subversive tells the story of the life of Rachel Carson and how even as gentle, polite and proper she was, she was a subversive by encouraging the rethinking of the “relationship between the human beings and nature by shifting from an anthropocentric notion of earth to a biocentric worldview in which people coexisted with nature and not over it” (Lytle 237). Carson grew up on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania with a mother pushing her to learn as much as she could about nature.

In the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s main concern is the widespread use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson concentrates on a commonly used pesticide in the 1950s called DDT. She opposes the indiscriminate spraying of DDT because it has profound consequences on the environment, humans and animals. Carson collected information about how the DDT can cause cancer in humans, harm animals such as birds and remained in the environment for long periods of time. Subsequently, the chemicals in the pesticides are extremely harmful so she tries to raise awareness and convince others that there are better alternatives.

Silent spring is a book written by Rachel Carson in 1962 which talks about the harmful effects of the environment particularly the livestock and the indiscriminately use of DDT, pesticides herbicides and chemical. Rachel Carson also talked about the chemical industry spreading false information and public officials accepting industry claims without any questions.

This book was focused on the concern of pesticides that industries, along with us as individuals, have been dumping (both knowingly and unknowingly) into water. Carson was concerned that the chemicals which the farmers spread on their fields, and even the chemicals we use in our homes (among others), in the end, might come back around and harm us. The beginning of the book tells a story of a place, that was once so beautiful, turned dead and ugly due to a “strange blight that crept over the area” and destroyed everything. Later in the book, she goes on to explain that chemicals, particularly one known as DDT, are the major cause of environmental damage and the near extinction of

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Chapter 1-A Fable for Tomorrow Carson opens with a lively town once full of life and nature but as she progresses on in chapter 1 it becomes apparent that later on the town seemed to have a wave of death flown over it due to a mysterious white dust on everything, people may think it came from God but it was a result of the towns own people’s doing due to people using harsh pesticides other dangerous waste and chemicals that can affect a well balanced natural habitat. This post ecliptic war zone mirrors our own world today due to people ignoring what is in front of us, a world that cannot function perfectly with addition of chemicals that were not to be part of it. Carson utilizing this flashback of a once harmonious

With the 1960s came a need for change, as an immense amount of smog and toxic chemicals used in agriculture and industry caused, the blue to fade away from the sky and water in America. Rachel Carson provided the catalyst for this change with her book Silent Spring published in 1962, which revealed the harmful impacts of pesticides on almost all wildlife and human beings. People reading a book wouldn’t be enough, though, for twenty million Americans came together on April 22, 1970, to celebrate the beauty of Earth and raise awareness about increasing concerns for the environment and declining quality of life. (maybe add a sentence about structure and diversity of the movement) Without these key events leading to the Environmental Movement’s diversity and unique structure through the 1970s, American values in politics and way of life would not have been able to change.

In the book 'Silent spring ' written by Rachael Carson we find a picture of Carson 's deep concept about the connection between nature’s equilibrium and the web of life that has been ruined by the uncontrolled use of insecticides which in turn affected the healthy livelihood of this earth’s creatures. Furthermore, she tells the readers of substitute techniques of achieving the same ends. The title of the book is enough to make us understand that it was a hint of a spring season with no bird songs painting our atmosphere meaning that all birds had vanished due to misuse of pesticides.