Silent Spring Assignment
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Added on 2020-05-04
Silent Spring Assignment
Added on 2020-05-04
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Running head: A LITERARY STUDY OF SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSONA LITERARY STUDY OF SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSONName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor note
1A LITERARY STUDY OF SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSONThe book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was first published on 27th September in theyear 1962 focusing on the environmental issues of United States. The book composed by a bravewoman presented a catastrophic view of the ecological deprivation for the first time in US and ina way started spreading awareness for the conservation of it 1. The book was nominated underthe category non-fiction for the National Book Award.The book serialized in three parts became so famed that the then American president JohnF. Kennedy read it in the summer of 1962 and was sold like hot cakes in the market. The bookwas a smash hit and was the most talked about book in the era. The book took four years of studyand investigation for private research in federal science before Carson published the book2.Although books may be a less celebrated medium than hostilities, rallies, insurrections,they at times become the most influential authority of societal change in the life of theAmericans. Mentions can be made of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that aroused the spirit ofrevolution in the early days among the natives of the country and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UncleTom’s Cabin that stimulated the people of the North to resist against the slavery in the era thatlead to the Civil War. Similarly, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson powerfully enquired theconfidence of the humans on the advancement of the technology and called for a movement forthe preservation of the ecological balance. The book Silent Spring is based upon a true story and commences with a “fablefor tomorrow” where Carson illustrates “a town in heart of America where all life seemed to livein a harmony with its surroundings...no witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of1 Griswold, Eliza. "How ‘Silent Spring’ignited the environmental movement."The New York Times21 (2012).2Carson, Rachel.Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002.
2A LITERARY STUDY OF SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSONnew life in this stricken world3. The people had done it themselves.” This fable draws instancesfrom actual communities where the application of DDT had damaged the wildlife and the naturalfloras and faunas and even humans. Carson’s most important focus was on the prospect of life onEarth.DDT, the most harmful and powerful pesticide known to the world exposed thevulnerability of nature came in hand of the civilians in the year 1945. Then only Edwin WayTeale and Carson objected about this newly invented miracle compound. Edwin warned, “Aspray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolutionupset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy. Ninety percent ofall insects are good and if they are killed, things go out of kilter right away.”4 Carson on theother hand, while living in Maryland, suggested the magazine Reader’s Digest to bring out anarticle demanding a series of tests on DDT as she had witnessed the appliance of the compoundnot far from where she resided. Unfortunately, the magazine rejected this proposal of Carson andthe matter was dismissed.In the year 1958, thirteen years after the first application of DDT, Carson started writingabout the risks of DDT after receiving a note from a companion in Massachussets whobemoaned about the death of large birds in Cape Cod due to spraying of DDT. Till then the use3Walker, K., & Walsh, L. (2012). “No One Yet Knows What the Ultimate Consequences May Be” How RachelCarson Transformed Scientific Uncertainty Into a Site for Public Participation in Silent Spring.Journal of Businessand Technical Communication,26(1), 3-34.4Krebs, J. R., Wilson, J. D., Bradbury, R. B., & Siriwardena, G. M. (1999). The second silentspring?.Nature,400(6745), 611-612.
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