The Motivation Of Pesticides In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Rachel Carson authored Silent Spring in 1962 as a book, but it originated as a series of articles. More than when it was published, the setting could also be described as the desire inside Carson to choose to fight the powerful chemical companies and the government allowing them to do such things like aerial spraying of DDT. The spark which ignited the desire inside Ms. Carson came when she received a letter from a friend describing the death of birds in her Boston neighborhood following such spraying. This letter was the motivation Carson needed to begin her research into the pesticide industry.

Carson uses the first person perspective when writing this book as she includes herself in the fight against the chemical companies and it

The protagonist is the “wake up call” she gives to both the American public as well as the large chemical companies and U.S. Government allowing them to use poorly tested chemicals which were causing tremendous damage to the environment. The central character was the awakening she created within the American people to a realization which seems common sense to us today- our bodies are connected to the world around us and what goes into us, whether eaten, breathed in, drank or absorbed through our skin- impacts our bodies tremendously. On the other hand, the antagonist would logically be the world’s largest pesticide companies and government officials who were in the crosshairs of Carson as she attempted to expose the dangerous chemicals

In an almost poetic way she tells a story in chapter one which describes the devastation the chemicals can cause to a town and then she goes about supporting this story with her research and facts- in a true scientific way throughout the remainder of the work. Interestingly, at times she refers to the pesticides as “life-killers” and talks about the true reasoning behind the use of pesticides- not really to destroy insects which cause a threat or true problem, but rather to increase the production of crops for the farming industry- more production, more money, more pesticides sold again the next year. The detail in which she writes, breaking down each chemical and the detrimental impact it has on the world and humans in particular- whether directly or indirectly- is very impressive and demonstrates the amount of work she has put in. Her description of the impact or almost multiplication of the intensity of the poison when it enters our water system is alarming. She discusses the activation of poison when mixed with water, the difference of liquid forms of the poisons compared to dry powders, the spread of poisons more rapidly and much more far-reaching when they enter drinking water, water runoffs and bodies of water. Soil, plants, animals,