Silent Spring by Rachel Carlson: Environmental Apocalyptic Work
Only to obey nature in order to overcome nature.
Carson alone with her excellent imagination was the most proficient one in constructing images of future disasters. Her masterpiece Silent Spring was also noteworthy as one of the best prediction novels instead of regular fiction books. In silent spring, Carson expresses her concern about human destruction of the natural environment, which is caused by the abuse of pesticides and other chemicals. In the book, Carson uses her expertise to analyze the environmental damage caused by DDT and other pesticides and the threats to the ecological chain. Such a hypothesis contains a profound apocalypse of environmental crisis and the duty of her novel is just to make people be conscious of what they will face in the future. After a close reading of her book from page 7 to page 8, I could not help but notice her use of words; the sharp tone shapes a horrible image, and her anxious mood to spreads the environmental education to the public. Carson reminds us that human beings are just a part of nature with her strong vivid descriptive writing and that any human behavior that destroys the ecological system will eventually lead human beings into the predicament of ecological crisis.
This environmental apocalyptic work is bound with rich and excellent imagination via the help of the examples of the environmental problems at the time. Consequently, people can be astonished by the exaggerated crisis to kick awake their sleeping awareness of environmental protection. To highlight the negative effect insecticides have brought to the environment, Carson also makes a clever arrangement; the serious examples caused by insecticides are concentrated within a few pages to make the apocalyptic effect more specific and impressive. Carson draws a panoramic picture of the pollution by creating the sentences like “to coat the leaves with a deadly film” and “to linger on in soil” to describe the damages to different species in different spaces. Under the evil hand of insecticide, birds in the sky, fish in the river, or even the humankind who praise themselves to be on the top of the food chain, nothing can survive from the destiny to be the victims of this disaster. By the scale magnification and description, she enlightens people that the pollution of insecticide is everywhere and any people, any species will possibly become the victim, that “all life is caught in its violent crossfire.” Humans will eventually pay for the cause as part of the ecosystem, and no one will win the chemical war.
Throughout the whole text of page 8, the environmental apocalypse could be seen everywhere. Carson with her artistic pen sarcastically described such apocalypses, which actually mean warnings to remind people to be conscious of the environmental crisis and to take action to deal with environmental problems.
