Rhetoric Techniques Used Via Pathos In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

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That Rhetoric Though Rachel Carson, a noted biologist, published “Silent Spring” in 1962, and isn’t shy to express her feelings about the violent interactions between man and nature. In the passage, it is clear that her purpose was to emotionally engage the reader with vivid descriptions, and to appeal to logic by reporting facts and exposing the death resulting from pesticides. Pathos is liberally sprinkled throughout the passage and is used as a driving point in Carson’s argument. Used more prominently in the second and fourth paragraph, the pictures painted of dying, pitiful animals (“... And in the other the pitiful heaps of many-hue feathers, the lifeless remains of birds...”) and caricatures of careless farmers (“...Doomed by a judge and jury who neither knew of their existence nor cared.”) appeal to the morals deep within us that unconsciously push us to cheer for the underdog. In this case, pathos is used to underline the suffering of the wildlife and the carelessness of the those who did the deed of spraying nature. …show more content…

The pictures of pathos are painted with stark and depressing diction, which contribute to the overall dark and hurtful tone, which makes it seem as if the author herself is taking bullets. Again, it used used alongside pathos in paragraphs two and four, as well as paragraph three. Short phrases such as “Casualty list,” “Lethal film,” “Chains of poisoning,” and “Wave of death” all use dark and angry words that contribute to the malevolent atmosphere. The phrases mentioned were all used to describe the actions of the farmers, and therefore portraying the atmosphere around the farmers with a negative light and making them be seen as bad

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