Rachel Carson is a famous activist in the environmental movement in the middle of the 20th century. This text, entitled a fable for tomorrow is an excerpt from her most famous book, silent spring. In fact this book raised the alarm about the use of chemicals, especially pesticides, which have a devastating effect on human health and the environment. In this passage Rachel Carson describes a fictitious town in the heart of America where everything is utopian, but in a very short period of time, those nearly ideal conditions of living were disturbed by some kind of white powder. I appreciated this passage for multiple reasons. First of all, the text is simple and easily understandable by the reader. Second of all the author approaches the topic using a fable instead of an argumentative essay.
Throughout the excerpt the author uses a simple but rich vocabulary, combined with short sentences to make the text effortlessly easy to understand by the reader, regardless of his background. And to make the idea even clearer for the readers Rachel Carson uses extensive descriptions through the passage. The descriptions help readers to visualize the town as if it was just in front of their eyes. The first two paragraphs are dedicated to the description of the imaginary town in its best condition. In this part of the text, the author gives particular attention to details such as the different
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Instead if using a argumentative essay the author opted for a more informal type, the fable. So the events described are most probably fictitious. This is revealed at the end of the excerpt in the last paragraph where the author says: “this town does not actually exist.” (Paragraph 9). Furtherer in the paragraph the reader understands that these events that happened are not the fruit of pure imagination. They happened, separately, in reality somewhere in the world: “Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened
Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died in 1951 of cervical cancer while trying to diagnose her illness, John Hopkins Hospital got a sample of her tumor and sent to the culture lab. Inside the lab, George Gey grows the cancerous cells that began to divide into hundreds of cells that became known as the HeLa cells. The immortal cells help in the development of the polio vaccine and other medicines that would help fight cancer.
The author states that the “town”
The buildings were described as having, “small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes,” as to make the infrastructure have human features to look at the narrator and scene around it. When the narrator is with Mrs. Todd and her herbal remedies the humanity of the town grows with the mystical qualities of the herbs as the remedies themselves “whispered directions could be heard as customers passed the windows” and the wind blew by, ““adverse winds at sea might also find their proper remedies.” By personifying the town itself and making it not only the setting, but a character, Jewett deepens the meaning of her excerpt to have a mystical tone and maintain the
1. What descriptive details does the author use to make it clear that the setting of the story is a small town?
The following involves the second chapter of Carson’s book, Silent Spring that was written in 1962. In this chapter Carson argues persuasively the adverse impacts of pesticides upon the environment and the risks on human health and the environment associated with these “genetic invaders” (Carson, 1962). Many of the extremely diverse people from Carson’s audience targeted were under the impression that chemicals like DDT, at that time in history, were safe for their health. Carson reconciles and attempts to persuade the public to consider the idea that DDT, which in the 1950s and 60s was one of the many chemical pesticides being manufactured and sold to
Rachel Carson is a noted biologist who studies biology, a branch of science addressing living organisms, yet she has written a book called Silent Spring to speak about the harmful effects of pesticides on nature. Carson doesn’t write about birds’ genetic and physical makeup, the role of them in the animal food chain, or even how to identify their unbelievable bird songs, yet strongly attests the fight for a well developed environment containing birds, humans, and insects is just and necessary. To Carson, the war for a natural environment is instantly essential for holding on to her true love for the study of biology. Thus Carson claims that whether it be a direct hit towards birds or an indirect hit towards humans and wildlife, farmers need to understand the effects and abandon the usage of pesticides in order to save the environment by appealing to officials, farmers, and Americans in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. She positions her defense by using rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questioning to establish logos, juxtaposing ideas, and using connotative and denotative diction.
In the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s main concern is the widespread use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson concentrates on a commonly used pesticide in the 1950s called DDT. She opposes the indiscriminate spraying of DDT because it has profound consequences on the environment, humans and animals. Carson collected information about how the DDT can cause cancer in humans, harm animals such as birds and remained in the environment for long periods of time. Subsequently, the chemicals in the pesticides are extremely harmful so she tries to raise awareness and convince others that there are better alternatives.
This book was focused on the concern of pesticides that industries, along with us as individuals, have been dumping (both knowingly and unknowingly) into water. Carson was concerned that the chemicals which the farmers spread on their fields, and even the chemicals we use in our homes (among others), in the end, might come back around and harm us. The beginning of the book tells a story of a place, that was once so beautiful, turned dead and ugly due to a “strange blight that crept over the area” and destroyed everything. Later in the book, she goes on to explain that chemicals, particularly one known as DDT, are the major cause of environmental damage and the near extinction of
When people reach a certain age they start finding a place in the world that fits them the best. Kids start associating themselves with people just like them or similar to them. However sometimes those people are not around growing up or the kids have yet to reach their true self. In the book Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, the protagonist Geryon, is a unique type of person that is trying to do just that. Geryon is a red, winged dragon; throughout the book he learns more about himself and how to become his authentic self. While it may seem easy for the readers to identify Geryon as a red winged mythical beast, he himself does not know who he is and works through a hard life looking for the answer to that question. Geryon grows and reaches his authentic identity by dealing with old flame Herakles, meeting teachers who help him along the way, and learning from Ancash a new perspective of himself.
Nature has played an enormous part in our lives. From the childhoods of unwanted or loved trips to the country to the issue of climate change, we have all had our part to play in the matter. And yet it affects us as well. Without the presence of nature, we would not be able to survive. Both Rachel Carson and Henry David Thoreau understand the necessity of nature and humanity's lack of love for it. However, they are not without any dissimilarity. Carson's "A Fable for Tomorrow" and Thoreau's Walden are both serious, persuasive pieces that consider the current habits of the American people to be harmful and use pathos as one of their methods to convey this message. However, the differences in time periods, messages, rhetorical effects, and approaches reveal a clear rift between the two works.
The book starts with a story of a town in America. Carson explains the town as being very beautiful and lively where
“On the outskirts of town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills toward the west.”
If you haven't read the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, you're missing out on an informative journey about pesticides and the effects that it has on the human body, on animals, and the reason why insecticides, pesticides, and all other sorts of chemicals have become such a controversial issue in our world. Rachel Carson eloquently wrote 50 years ago about how humans are the reason that pesticides have gotten out of control the way they have. Now 50 years later, the use of pesticides has increased constantly, but the amount of farms using said pesticides has actually decreased according to agricultural reports from 2002 to 2007. So, one might wonder whether or not she had an impact on our modern day world. You see, on a greater scale Rachel Carson doesn't seem to have had an impact. We’ll be looking at the impact her book has had through a closer and more personal spectrum, then you
Rachel Carson purposely uses ethos, a means of convincing someone through an ethnic appeal, in her book Silent Spring. Using a variety of means of persuasion, she pleads to the readers in ways that affect them personally. She starts in chapter one, “A Fable for Tomorrow” by first describing the perfect world. Carson then proceeds to portray a fabricated story of the perfect storm scenario of chemical poisons in the atmosphere. She further clarifies this is not an attack, but rather self-infliction. From there, she describes in details the underlying problems brought upon humans by the chemical poisons used to control insects in chapter two, The Obligation to Endure. It additionally specifies the layout of the history of intervention by
In her essay “The Obligation to Endure”, Rachel Carson alerts the public to the dangers of modern industrial pollution. She writes about the harmful consequences of lethal materials being released into the environment. She uses horrifying evidence, a passionate tone, audience, and the overall structure of her essay to express to her readers that the pollution created by man wounds the earth. There are many different ways that pollution can harm the environment, from the nuclear explosions discharging toxic chemicals into the air, to the venomous pesticides sprayed on plants that kills vegetation and sickens cattle. The adjustments to these chemicals would take generations. Rachel