Paul Bogard's Essay 'Let There Be Dark'

Author, Paul Bogard in his essay, "Let there be dark", published by Los Angeles Times, addresses the concerning issue that overwhelms this dystopian society. At a time when revolutionized modern technology is mass produced and the nights often lack darkness. He utilizes a concerned yet philosophical tone to make the audience miss natural darkness. He uses amiable diction, logical statistics, and an appeal to the audiences emotions by worrying them about health as well as animals to make them want to preserve natural darkness before its gone.

In the first and second paragraph, Bogard takes off with philosophical, mild diction. He uses words such as, "sugary," "stars," "children," "cheer," "worth," "bright," "closeness," and "life." Use of such diction, cause and amiable tone. This makes the audience consider his purpose and take into consideration his argument, as he is trying to please them and be kind by

Who does not believe statistics and science and the big bad truth? In the sixth paragraph he says, "amount of light in the sky increases an average of about 6% every year." By integrating percentages like this one to his argument, he adds power to the idea exposed of preserving natural darkness. It is as he wants the audience to get informed and learn something valuable for their everyday life, which in turn makes the audience want to evidently change their habitual routine of not taking care of natural darkness. He also adds on, "those of us over 35... truly known dark nights." By mingling this number into his essay he provides his audience with a sense of history... almost as if natural darkness is a lost item that we'd perhaps never recover. This makes the audience feel lonesome and avoided by nature's beauty (or even by the author). It is as if hes saying, hey you better start preserving darkness if you ever want to see