Sacrificing Town In Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

In the eye-opening excerpt from the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, we are regaled with a tale of an ideal, albeit fictional, flourishing town that blossomed with vitality. Through descriptive passages and an abundance of detail the author uses the setting and mood to take us on a journey through time as we learn about a prospering town that succumbs to a doomed fate that can only be instated through humans careless actions.

The author immediately plunged into descriptive detail in this short story, allowing a visualization so intense that you feel as if you are actually “in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grains and hillsides of orchards.” This flawlessly portrayed Middle America town that becomes “famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life” is said to soon attract settlers hoping to prosper in the heart of the fruitful land. Describing an atmosphere plagued with a pollutant causing what’s conveyed as a “strange stillness,” the author described the now infected land as one that was devoid of bees and birds. “On mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound. “From descriptions of “roadsides
“ As the unfortunate fate of the town turns, the mood of the story shifts, almost instantly, with the community now being described as one that an “evil spell” had been cast. A visualization of darkness falls over the reader as they are told: “Everywhere was a shadow of death. “ The audience can easily picture the now decimated town when the roadsides are described as “silent, deserted by all living