Obligation to Endure: Chapter in Silent Spring

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“The Obligation to Endure” chapter in Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is a gripping chapter that is overwhelmed with vital information on chemicals and pesticides that everyone is subjected to each and every day. Carson’s chapter is explanatory, and she wants to inform her readers, the general public, the main problem of our population is the humans who contaminate everything they touch. These humans have created things that can build up inside the tissues of plants and animals and alter genetics beyond anyone’s beliefs (Carson 8). Carson strives to inform her audience that as humans, everyone makes mistakes, but the country has made such a drastic mistake now that it is slowly killing every person, plant, and animal in the process. Something as simple as a chemical to keep bugs off plants has turned into a toxic biohazard that can only be taken in by human bodies in microscopic amounts without risk of poison, sickness, or death. With her own knowledge from her past careers in zoology, marine biology, and being a pioneer in the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), she is well informed about the carcinogens and disastrous qualities of these pesticides. Carson gets her views across even with her incredible lack of objectivity. Her straight forward style and uncomplicated language in her rhetorical context help prove her own ethics and logical thinking, while organizing her quality of evidence to get an emotional reaction out of her audience to attest her beliefs.
In the chapter, Carson constantly points out how these biologically potent chemicals are a terrible thing, and how they should become less toxic or simply halted in use all together. She continues her negativity by proving to her audience with studi...

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..., she mentions the Bill of Rights, and how it contains no guarantee that citizens will be secure against lethal poisons distributed by private individuals or public officials (Carson 12). Using the Bill of Rights as a focus makes the American public very empathetic to the situation. The law of the land that America runs by, does not mention this problem that is killing people every day. That statement makes the American readers feel more connected to her views, and the cause. The emotion throughout the chapter is almost as if Carson is blaming the reader for all the damage that the scientists have created with the dangerous insecticides. When the reader feels responsible for a problem, or if there is a way for he or she to get involved to negate these negative side effects, that is an emotion that truly hits home with the reader, and will give a lasting impression.

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