Analysis of Silent Spring

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In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson seeks to persuade the readers to open their eyes to a serious problem: the careless spraying of poison. Her purpose in writing the book is to protect plants, animals, and humans from poisons that never had to be sprayed. Carson uses invective, the ad hominem argument, and punctuation to attack the people responsible for the sprayings and yield an emotional reaction from the reader. Through the use of those strategies, her argument becomes stronger and more effective at revealing the horrors of species control.
In order to achieve her objective, Carson has to convince the reader that the farmers are careless about the environment. Carson uses invective throughout the piece to make farmers the “bad guys”. Right off the bat, she uses invective to startle the reader. “As the habit of killing grows- the resort to “eradicating” any creature that may annoy or inconvenience us- birds are more and more finding themselves a direct target of poisons rather than an incidental one.” When the reader reads the first chunk of the sentence, they are immediately captivated by the use of “killing”. It catches them off-guard and makes their minds wander. It also imbeds in the reader’s mind that the farmers are murderers. Using the word “habit” makes the reader think that the farmers kill so often that they do not even think about it. The first line of Silent Spring is perhaps the most powerful line in the piece. It automatically pits the reader against the farmers, because no one roots for the killers. It makes the farmers seem ruthless and malicious without even getting into specifics. As the piece lingers, Carson continues to use harsh and highly critical language to slander the farmers. “…-But the farmers had been...

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...farmers’ words are rubbish. Carson uses dashes many times to break up the sentence and allow the reader to process the information. Any good piece has many pauses because they give the reader time to think. Lastly, Carson puts the word “month” in italics (line 35). By doing this, she accentuates the length of time that it took for the workers to get ill. In all persuasive literature, there are both important facts and fluff. It is the job of the author to emphasize what is important.
Carson’s article does an outstanding job at convincing the readers that farmers need to be more careful when using poisons. Invective language attacks the farmers, ad hominem argument makes the reader sympathetic, and punctuation further intensifies the effects of the other two. At the end of the piece, Carson has most of the readers on her side because the article is so well written.

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