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Silent Spring Parathion

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In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, the author, writes about the relationship between Americans and their environment. She uses her extensive knowledge in biology to describe current practices taken place to control animals, and how it affects our environment. Carson argues that a farmer’s use of parathion is cruel and will ultimately lead to the destruction of our world. Parathion is a ruthless killer that preys on the unsuspecting. In Silent Spring, parathion is defined by Carson as a “deadly poison” and a “lethal film”, both words invoking a harmful tone due to their connotation to a toxic and life-threatening mood. By using these words to describe the pesticide, Carson is emphasizing the fatality associated with using parathion, thus comparing …show more content…

Carson introduces the role of a farmer as being apart of a “habit of killing [that] grows”. Her use of the word habit demonstrates her belief that parathion is unneeded, as a habit is commonly associated with a practice that is continued out of familiarity instead of necessity. By describing parathion as a practice done out of familiarity only, Carson is showing how unneeded the pesticide is, and how its use can and should be stopped. This needless habit is continued when she states the dangers of parathion and how it is continued by farmers because of “none to hinder them”. Through this statement, she establishes the fact that farmers’ know the danger behind the pesticide, yet continue to use it because they have never been introduced to anything else, much like how a bad habit is continued because one does not know how to stop, which furthermore solidifies how unneeded parathion is. She states that they are “persuaded” by the comfort of killing, which shows how because they are so myopic on making sure all wildlife is gone so it doesn’t hurt their crops, they are unable to think of a logical approach that can protect their crops whilst also protecting their environment. She goes on to describe the substance as a “potential hazard to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife” thus elaborating on its dangers towards the environment by showing how it can destroy

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