How far will humans go to avoid inconvenience at the expense of other life forms? Biologist Rachel Carson intricately addresses this issue in her book, Silent Spring. When the book was written, in 1962, how our actions affected the environment was still widely unknown. The killing of colossal amounts of lesser life forms to avoid the undesired facets of their presence was common practice and the secondary effects of these killings that stemmed to human life wasn’t kept in check. In this impassioned passage, Rachel Carson confronts the mistreatment of the environment in order to provoke societal reform towards a conservationist way of life.
In the beginning of the passage, Carson incorporates substantial amounts of allusion displaying the
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recorded effects of poisoning animals near farms in the United States. With consideration that lesser life forms aren’t as valued as human life, Carson alludes to workers in California who were working in orchards treated with the chemical parathion a month earlier. While in the fields, the workers “collapsed and went into shock, and escaped death only through skilled medical attention.” This startling account of the negative affects of ecosystem manipulation allows the reader to become aware of direct consequences to eradicating nuisance animals. The allusion to current events will sway the reader away from using chemicals to rid of crop destroying animals and seek alternative methods to damaging the environment. In addition to recounting current events, figurative language is predominant throughout the passage.
When questioning the practice of eliminating burdening animals, Carson employs the metaphors, “chains of poisonings” and “wave of death.” These metaphors depict the eradications as shackling to the environment and bringing forth sweeping amounts of death. These negatively connoted comparisons evoke unpleasant feelings toward the extermination of invasive species. Further along in the passage, Figurative language is again utilized in the analogy, “Who has placed in one pan of the scales the leaves that might have been eaten by the beetles and in the other the pitiful heaps of many-hued feathers, the lifeless remains of the birds that fell before the unselective bludgeon of insecticidal poisons?” The analogy weighs the pros and cons of use of insecticides to show that it is heavily degenerative to the ecosystem. The reader then discovers that the figurative scale is heavily tipped towards the negative side of results. Metaphor and analogy used in the passage paint a vivid picture in the reader’s mind of the tragedy that occurs when animal populations are poisoned to avoid any possible undesirable dimension of their …show more content…
existence. Along with the author’s allusion and figurative language, Carson’s syntax and diction elicits punching emotions from the reader.
In an attempt to play of the hearts of readers, the author uses the periodic sentence, “Yet at so fearful a risk the farmers, with none to hinder them, waged their needless war on blackbirds.” This device conveys the farmer to be in a position of power with no restraint in his actions. The set up allows the main clause to sadden the reader at the choice to kill the blackbirds. This unnecessary tragedy argument is again used in the author’s diction when words such as, “lethal film” and “authoritarian” are used in description of the farmer’s actions, and the farmer himself. The chosen words relay the abuse of parathion to genocidal actions and tyrants. Syntax and diction play a major role in assigning the parathion perpetrators an appearance of pure
evil. With the aid of numerous rhetorical devices, readers discover the folly of nuisance animal extermination through Carson’s persuasive passage. In spite of a long road to ending the exploitation of our planet, the message of Silent Spring has been heard. Modern regulations on use of pesticides and insecticides show the success of her passage as being self-evident. However the scrutiny in which Carson approached the subject would have one believe that the current state of the environment would leave much to be desired. Although humanity has come a long way, have we gone far enough to protect to the life that exists all around us?
Using “eradicating” is an example of amplifying and emotional diction. “Eradicating” is too powerful for something that merely “annoys.” The hyperbole “eradicating” and understatement “annoys” work together to ridicule what the farmers are doing and shock Carson’s audience. This comparison is used throughout the first part of the excerpt. Carson states, “a slight change in agricultural practices” to make a suggestion for what the farmers could have done. She follows that with “sent the planes on their mission of death.” Yet another understatement followed by a hyperbole reveals the excessive, unnecessary solution chosen by the
After Carson conveyed and explained her bias, she begins to ask questions with only one real answer. This is an effective format as readers will feel they are drawing their own opinions at the end, but are really being spoon fed Carson’s bias. One specific rhetorical question - “Who has made the decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this ever-widening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a pebble is dropped into a pond?” - is particularly effective as it contains a simile. This simile adds very vivid imagery and marks the beginning of a list of rhetorical questions all pertaining to who is to blame for the death and injures by poison. It is enough to push some people to bold action against the use poison to eradicate pests, as they don’t want this unsettled blame to fall upon them. They are encouraged to prove they aren’t ignorant or contributing to this problem.
Rachel Carson establishes ethos to begin constructing her argument against poisonings. In lines 8-12, she cites the Fish and Wildlife Service to demonstrate that her concerns extend to credible organizations and are not unfounded. She documents an example where farmers in southern Indiana “went together in the summer of 1959 to engage a spray plane to treat an area of river bottomland with parathion” (lines 12-16). To further establish her ethos and authority to speak on this topic, she also supplements this example by explaining a healthy, eco-friendly alternative to how the farmers could have responded. In lines 17-22, she states that agricultural practice revisions would have sufficed for a solution, making the poisonings unnecessary. By offering a solution, Carson not only
Rachel Carson’s use of the of the term ‘biocides’ signifies the whole rhetoric of her book. These so-called pesticides and herbicides are not merely killing herbs and insects as their names suggest, but rather they are committing murder against the whole biological spectrum on earth. We should call them as they are, biocides. Biocides that are harming each and every single living creature on this planet of ours, leading to their elimination. From humans and mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians, to the tiny ants and bees, we are all being killed slowly on different rates. All eventually reaching a mutual doom, which is the destiny of the whole biological phenomena if one succumbs. That is due to interdependence and interconnectedness of all living species on
She continues to make us question our decisions on the use of pesticides by telling us more about how it will eventually “contaminate the entire environment” and bring on the “threat of disease and death” (Carson 360). However, she backs up her claim by giving us some facts. She points out that the real problem is overproduction and goes on to say that “our farms, despite measures to remove acreages from production and to pay farmers not to produce, have yielded such a staggering excess of crops that the American taxpayer in 1962 is paying out more than one billion dollars a year as the totally carrying cost of the surplus-food storage program” (Carson 361). Carson gives us examples of how this product we’re using is actually costing us more than we may think in ways we probably didn’t even imagine. Her tone goes to be more lighthearted explaining that she doesn’t think that there is no insect problem just that we need to figure out a better way to control it, “all this is not to say there is no insect problem and no need of control. I am saying, rather, that control must be gathered to realities, not to mythical situations, and that the methods employed must be such that they do not destroy us along with the insects.” (Carson 361). She says that “I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons
Carson writes with meticulous detail with almost all of her scientific facts and explanations. She compels her readers with keywords and phrases to gravitate her audience towards her side of the argument. Carson gives an example explaining that “in this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world –the very nature of its life…chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in the soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death”(43). To begin, Carson skillfully argues her point by describing chemicals as “sinister” which grabs her reader’s attention, and presents her evidence comprehensibly so that her variety of readers feel well informed, rather than stunned and confused. Carson could have simply stated that chemicals can transfer from soil to living creatures and save time without disclosure; however, she instead reaches the decision to describe the process with powerful, yet understandable vocabulary that provides emotional appeal in her argument. By presenting scientific evidence and explanations in a compelling and sentimental manner, Carson’s audience is able to connect with her argument. Every fact and description that she gives deems useful in her argument that pesticides should not be used for the treatment of
Have you ever thought about how your fruits and vegetables are grown? How about which ingredients are put into bug sprays and insecticides to ward off those pesky insects? Look no further because author Rachel Carson looks deep into the many environmental issues caused by pesticides and herbicides in her New York Times best-selling novel, “Silent Spring.” “Silent Spring” is a collection of studies which were performed in an effort to educate others about the harmful things occurring everyday to their foods and every-day environment in hopes of giving them a wake up call. This novel is thought by many to be a revolutionary novel that forced people to take notice of the harm being caused in their world, many of which people were unaware of. After discovering the results of these chemicals, it really makes one wonder, is the luxury of being insect free really worth all of the consequences?
Through millions of years of evolution, well-balanced habitats have co-evolved to provide for the wide variety of species and their needs. Trees have adapted to weeds, weeds have adapted to the predation from herbivores, and so on up the food chain. Similar scenarios are seen throughout the world. Through the process of natural selection, specific species or broad species families will go extinct. However, these occurrences have largely been due to the natural flow and evolution of time. It wasn’t until recently that dominant species, such as humans, have taken the course of nature into their own hands.
“Carson used the era’s hysteria about radiation to snap her readers to attention, drawing a parallel between nuclear fallout and a new, invisible chemical threat of pesticides throughout Silent Spring,” (Griswold 21). She described radiation as the creation of human’s tampering with nature, and warned that similar dangers would become inevitable with the continued use of pesticides (Carson 7). Carson also knew that a large percent of her audience would be housewives, who she could use as example of those who found poisoned birds and squirrels in their gardens. She angled much of Silent Spring towards this audience, which helped her book become the catalyst for environmental change (Griswold
... our way when we are trying to do something such as deforestations. We should respect living creatures in our world because they have a life they should enjoy. People never want to see the dark side of an industry which is why society doesn’t seem to care or be informed. What this reminds me of personally is the show Scooby Doo which is about monsters and teenagers investigating them, trying to figure out what it is and at the end of every show it’s always a human which gives a powerful message because at the end of the day humans are the monsters, are we the monsters today? We need to open our eyes before it's too late. Life is valuable and we need to cherish every moment.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revolutionized the American point of view concerning the environment. It rejected the notion that pesticides and chemicals are the right choice for “controlling” various animals that are seen as an inconvenience. Carson writes about the dangers of pesticides, not only to nature but man himself.
In the same way the fable shows how trying to strike back at insects for their annoying habits only results in the human being hurt, peoples unnecessarily harsh measures to deal with wildlife hurt the human species more than the bugs. For instance, I remember when I found an anthill; after telling my brother his first idea was to get something to kill the ants. Of course, this seemed cruel, so I suggested we deal with the ant problem a little less ruthlessly. However I soon realized a common solution to the existence of ants is simply to kill them; using whatever powders, sprays and other tools people can find. Even though they are undoubtedly a pest, it did not seem a smart or humane response, After looking into the issue more, I discovered that while these powders and things were seen as a cure all for the issue of ant infestations, the chemicals included in the products had harmful consequences.
Ecologists formulate their scientific theories influenced by ethical values, and in turn, environmental ethicists value nature based on scientific theories. Darwinian evolutionary theory provides clear examples of these complex links, illustrating how these reciprocal relationships do not constitute a closed system, but are undetermined and open to the influences of two broader worlds: the sociocultural and the natural environment. On the one hand, the Darwinian conception of a common evolutionary origin and ecological connectedness has promoted a respect for all forms of life. On the other hand, the metaphors of struggle for existence and natural selection appear as problematic because they foist onto nature the Hobbesian model of a liberal state, a Malthusian model of the economy, and the productive practice of artificial selection, all of which reaffirm modern individualism and the profit motive that are at the roots of our current environmental crisis. These metaphors were included in the original definitions of ecology and environmental ethics by Haeckel and Leopold respectively, and are still pervasive among both ecologists and ethicists. To suppose that these Darwinian notions, derived from a modern-liberal worldview, are a fact of nature constitutes a misleading interpretation. Such supposition represents a serious impediment to our aim of transforming our relationship with the natural world in order to overcome the environmental crisis. To achieve a radical transformation in environmental ethics, we need a new vision of nature.
Anthropocentrism is the school of thought that human beings are the single most significant entity in the universe. As a result, the philosophies of those with this belief reflect the prioritization of human objectives over the well-being of one’s environment. However, this is not to say that anthropocentric views neglect to recognize the importance of preserving the Earth. In fact, it is often in the best interests of humans to make concerted efforts towards sustaining the environment. Even from a purely anthropocentric point of view, there are three main reasons why mankind has a moral duty to protect the natural world.
"1 Matthiessen goes on to write that "one shudders to imagine how much more impoverished our habitat would be had Silent Spring not sounded the alarm. " 2 This is indeed a worthy claim by Mr. Matthiessen, but he correctly uncovers a bigger and more alarming truth when he says, "the damage being done by poison chemicals today is far worse than it was when she wrote the book. 3 In fact, since 1962, pesticide use in the US has doubled. As an environmentalist (or a "radical" environmentalist, as I am often labeled by members of the mainstream environmental movement), I feel it is my duty as a protector of the Earth's well-being to write this editorial as a means of bringing into the American consciousness a variety of frightening environmental issues.