The Lorax Report

“…the madness of the mass poison sprayings came to an end…” (McCarthy, 2012). “…the people had done it themselves.” (Carson, 1962). “Commerce attacked the swamp and began its usual process of devastation” (Porter,1912). All of these are examples of ecocriticism, the study of literature and the environment. I feel authors usually use ecocriticism in their writing to identify the history of the environmental problems caused by humans, offering solutions to these problems, and how these problems affect food chains and food webs. Many authors and producers, including Rachel Carson, Michael McCarthy, and the producers of The Lorax use this in their work. First on the list is identifying the history of the problem. In The Lorax, a portion of the movie is devoted to

The chemicals soak into the ground and are then pumped into the innocent flower patch nearby that doesn’t know what its soaking up in it’s roots. A little bunny rabbit and his friends come by and eat the now lethal flower patch. Some of the bunnies are fine, for some reason the chemicals don’t hurt them. Others get sick and die because of the deadly chemicals that were in the flower. The bunnies that die are eaten by a turkey vulture, and the chemicals in the bunny corpses kill the buzzard, while the other bunnies are perhaps eaten by a coyote or a fox. These animals also might die just like the turkey vulture, killed by it’s last meal. Think of the original reason for the pesticides— the pests! The chemicals usually kill most of the original target, cutting off a major source of food for many other animals. McCarthy uses an example similar to this only in less words in his article, The Green Movement. “One of the most sinister features of DDT and related chemicals is the way they are passed on from one organism to another through all the links of the food chains.” (McCarthy,