“Before there was an environmental movement, there was one brave woman and her very brave book,” (Matthiessen, 1999, p. BU 1)said Time magazine of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. Rachel Carson was an author, biologist, and ecologist, and for her eloquent writing in Silent Spring, Carson is credited by many as the founder of the environmental movement. The article “The Affective Legacy of Silent Spring,” by Alex Lockwood, details the aspects of Rachel Carson’s writing that made Silent Spring revolutionary, indirectly highlighting her as an innovative leader of the environmental movement. Throughout her life, Rachel Carson’s unique way of combining both science and writing made her a leader with lasting impact.
For Rachel Carson, writing and science were two mainstays from the very beginning. Rachel Carson was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, in 1907 (Lytle, 2007, p. 15). She spent much of her childhood exploring woodland nature with her mother (Lytle, 2007, p. 18). Carson’s talent for writing also became evident at a young age; when she was ten years old, she had some of her first works published in St. Nicholas children’s magazine (De Angelis, 1999). In 1929, Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (Lytle, 2007, p. 33). She acquired her master’s degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University three years later (De Angelis, 1999). Carson was employed by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as a junior aquatic biologist in 1936 (Matthiessen, 1999). This was the beginning of Carson’s long career with the federal government. After ten years of working with the Bureau of Fisheries, Carson became an information specialist, and in 1949, she was promoted to chief editor of publications (Matthiessen, 1999). With the success of her second book, The Sea Around Us, which won the National Book Award, Carson was able to retire from her federal position in 1952 and devote herself to her writing (Matthiessen, 1999). Ten years later, Silent Spring was published, and Carson’s legacy as an influential writer and scientist was solidified.
With Silent Spring, Rachel Carson used her writing skills to protect the nature – the science – that she loved so well. One of the main focuses of Silent Spring is the harmful effects of abusing chemical pesticides. Carson found inspiration for Silent Spring in the plethora of chemical pesticides, whose environmental impact was largely unexplored, endorsed by the U.S. government (Micheals, 2003). “What I discovered,” said Carson of writing Silent Spring, “was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do would be more important” (Matthiessen, 1999, p. BU1). Writing Silent Spring was no easy undertaking: when Carson began working on Silent Spring, she had to provide for her grandnephew and mother, both of whom were under her care (Koehn, 2012). In 1958, shortly after she began her research for Silent Spring, Carson’s mother died, and in 1960, Carson had two tumors removed from her left breast (Koehn, 2012). For four years, Carson persevered through these hardships to compile the research, investigation, and writing that became Silent Spring (Koehn, 2012). In 1962, Silent Spring was finally published, and Carson’s efforts were rewarded. Her goal in writing Silent Spring was to spur action, and in addition to inspiring environmentalism worldwide, Silent Spring moved President John F. Kennedy to form an Advisory Committee to investigate the book’s claims (Lockwood, 2012). The findings of this committee led to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 (Lockwood, 2012). The technicalities of Silent Spring’s widespread impact are the main subject of the article, “The Affective Legacy of Silent Spring,” by Alex Lockwood.
In “The Affective Legacy of Silent Spring,” Alex Lockwood demonstrates how Rachel Carson used literary techniques to make the message of her science-based book meaningful to the general public. I appreciate how Lockwood’s article emphasizes the unique literary style that contributed to the success of Silent Spring (2012). Carson herself realized that she did not follow scientific norms in Silent Spring. She commented on her own works with, “I have deliberately used certain expressions which would be objected to in formal scientific writing” (Lockwood, 2012, p. 124). Atypical for a book on scientific findings, Silent Spring, used tactics to emotionally sway readers; to incite response, Carson had to, “. . . puncture ‘the barrier of public indifference’” (Lockwood, 2012, p. 124). I found it interesting that Lockwood used a methodical approach to show exactly how Carson emotionally aroused her readers. One of the ideas contended in Silent Spring to generate emotional response is that all living things of the world are interdependent upon one another (Lockwood, 2012). Lockwood makes it easy to see how Carson used this logic to prod readers to realize that if nature suffered from pesticide abuse, humans would be negatively affected as well. Lockwood also shows how Carson made this approach more personal by creating examples of people observing negative effects of pesticides in their everyday lives (2012). According to Lockwood, these specific scenarios in Silent Spring defied the universally accepted idea that emotions were “. . . proper only to the domain of private life” (2012, p. 129). I agree with this assertion of his: before Silent Spring, feelings like concern and sorrow were reserved for one’s circle of family and friends. Silent Spring told the world that the plight of nature was cause for concern and that the destruction of nature would also cause sorrow. Lockwood says that this tactic of awakening empathy became the precedent for environmental authors following Carson (2012). I believe this particular strategy from Silent Spring has more far-reaching results than Lockwood gives it credit for. This approach has been adopted by numerous causes, including many humanitarian organizations. Throughout the article, Lockwood makes thorough use of detailed descriptions to show the qualities of Silent Spring that were innovative. I think Lockwood’s portrayal of Silent Spring as a groundbreaker is very accurate, and I enjoyed the depth of his article’s logical explanations.
Throughout Rachel Carson’s life, her aptitude for both science and writing contributed to her legacy as an initiator of environmentalism. Though Silent Spring was rooted in extensive research, Carson wrote Silent Spring in terms with which the general public could relate; Carson compelled readers to empathetically view the fate of nature being exposed to pesticides. As shown in Alex Lockwood’s article, one of Carson’s greatest innovations was in her approach to writing; by emotionally stirring readers, she incited action, a strategy so successful that it became the trend for future environmentally-minded authors. There is still progress to be made in terms of global environmental awareness, but thanks to Silent Spring and its influential author, the first pieces of the path have been paved.