Megan Fitzpatrick English HL 2 Casady May 21, 2019 Scholarship Revision In Rachel Carson’s short work called “Silent Spring” preaches of the need to protect the environment and animals using a repetition of a darker diction, a stressing tone, and short anecdotes. Rachel Carson begins her passage with much darker words associated with death to alert her audience of the future to come, if no action is take to protect the surrounding world. Words such as, “eradicating” (2) and the phrase “...mission of death...” throws the reader into the immediate situation instead of dancing around the topic. Death is a permanent in life, and something that every person has experienced in some shape or form, and being more of a serious topic elicit a serious response. Giving Carson’s reader the sense of urgency that she feels. Reappearing in the middle of the passage, Carson now relates death to people, speaking about the humans who “...escaped death...” when the subject of poison and it’s impact is shown. Carson does this to give her readers a wider sense on what the urgency these poisons are doing, not just harming the wildlife but now the people. Bringing the topic back to a more personal subject, of the reader now thinking on what the effects could be upon them and their lives; and no reader appreciates their lives being harmed or changed without their knowledge. Carson utilizes this diction to push the urgency of the topic into the forefront of her readers mind, and that this is not just a topic for banter. The urgency of the topic is again seen in Carson’s exasperated tone, and the stressing pass of the passage. Towards the end of the passage, where the professional tone ends, and the exasperation truly appears, Carson italicized the word “right” after repeating herself. This is often used when questioning one’s own reasoning, and Carson would use this to elicit thoughts from the reader. Which, whether in agreement or disagreement, gets the reader to think of the seriousness of the poisons and Carson has accomplished a major goal in her purpose. Getting the reader to think on the topic gets them to talk with others on the topic, which spreads the word of the topic and possibly Carson’s passage, spreading awareness of her topic. Carson can also be seen in her slightly sarcastic tone when saying that people would be “ungraced” without the presence of birds. This makes the reader feel as if they would be lower than their present selves if there were no birds soaring over head. People in general would want to improve, not back track, so this tone makes the reader want to improve their conditions so that they will not become something lesser than their current selves. Carson’s tone sets the frame for the readers to think about the implications of the future world if no action is taken. Carson continues on the path of personalizing her passage by including the short anecdotes of the farmers in 1959 and their thoughtless actions on killing the animals around them. The use of personal anecdotes makes the reader feel more of a connection with the passage, as all readers in Carson’s intended audience have had some past in which they interacted with birds, in this case, and they understand how harmless they are. SO they would sympathize with the birds in this case, painting the farmers as the villains. The readers would want to avoid becoming like the villains, and would instead try and save the birds if they could. Which would lead the readers down a path of trying to stop the use of the toxic poisons that harm not just animals, but the plants that are later given to humans; themselves in this case. In Rachel Carson’s passage,she elicits feelings of sympathy for the dying animals, and panic for their own safety. These feelings spark the purpose of Carson’s passage, on how the environment needs to be protected, or at least we need to stop pouring toxic chemicals in that would only later harm us as well.
Reflective Paragraph: In this revision, I essentially retyped the whole essay. I wanted to improve upon my language what was there and delve deeper into the possibly decent analysis that I had originally written. I essentially just used a higher vocabulary, and actually wrote down the WHAT, HOW, and WHY. I can clearly see the change in my own writing, and I’m slightly proud of myself. It is also slightly embarrassing when I look back at how bad my essays were, but I am glad to see that my current essays are not that terrible. For it is very easy to get lost in today and not see the progress that one has accomplished.