Rhetorical Analysis Of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

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Throughout Rachel Carson's, "Silent Spring," she uses distinct and striking rhetoric in an abundant matter in order to properly convey her stance on her argument. In the article, she argues how deadly poisons like parathion are inhumane, cruel, and are an unethical solution to a farmer's issues. To properly show her devotion for this she adds rhetorical devices such as ethos, logos, pathos, a abundant amount of rhetorical questions and other cases of imagery to properly portray her argument. In the first part of Carson's article, she speaks to the reader by applying the before-mentioned ethos, logos, and pathos. Examples of this being provided by one of statements such as, "the Fish and Wildlife Service has found it necessary to express serious concern over this trend." Here Carson is directly speaking to authority by providing hard evidence for her claim. Again she provides an example like, "the problem could have been solved easily by a slight change in agricultural practice-" with this statement underscoring the importance of reason in decision making. Finally in the first …show more content…

One case of a rhetorical question would be, "Does Indiana still raise any boys who roam through woods or fields and might even explore the margins of a river." The author asks these questions in order to get the reader to start thinking about the situation at hand more thoroughly as by asking them directly, the reader is then put on a spot where they might have to form an opinion on the question at hand. These rhetorical questions purpose are to maybe give deeper thought into the subject at hand by raising a question that maybe would not have been raised in the first place, and if the rhetorical question at hand does make the reader think, then they will be able to follow the author's claims against the poison with more

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