Silent Spring Rhetorical Analysis

Carson uses many elements from the Rhetorical triangle in Silent Spring, most from the logical and ethical appeals. The arguments Carson gave in Silent Spring were all about the use of synthetic chemicals. She presented that humans are a part of nature and are not meant to control it. Secondly, scientists do not know the long term effects these chemicals can have on the environment. Lastly, she wants to find better ways to control pests without the use of environmentally harmful chemicals. The audience Carson is addressing are the readers that she hopes become more informed about the effects of the chemicals and possibly scientists that have control over this industry. The tone of this novel was informative and seemed to be urging for an immediate change. Carson’s diction …show more content…
“The people had done it themselves”. An example of the logical appeal can be found on page 297, “The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born to the Neanderthal age of biology and physiology, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The appeals used by the author gives the reader facts and what morally is right. Carson uses imagery to explain that these chemicals are causing a prodigious negative effect on the environment, for example, “The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields…The apple trees were coming to bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms…The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire… This town does not actually exist, but it might easily…” (pg. 2-3). The novel opens with this description of a town that is experiencing unthinkable turmoil due to the pollution caused by the synthetic