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The complete study guide is currently available as a downloadable PDF, RTF, or MS Word DOC file from the PinkMonkey MonkeyNotes download store. The complete study guide contains summaries and notes for all of the chapters; detailed analysis of the themes, plot structure, and characters; important quotations and analysis; detailed analysis of symbolism, motifs, and imagery; a key facts summary; detailed analysis of the use of foreshadowing and irony; a multiple-choice quiz, and suggested book report ideas and essay topics.

OVERALL ANALYSIS

PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

Even though Silent Spring is not a novel, it still has a plot. Rather, it repeats a single plot in each of its chapters. The plot is constructed along the lines of an initial state of harmony and productivity, then a drastic and profound fall with the redemption held out to those who will accept its responsibilities. The first chapter is a perfect example of this plot. Carson first describes the world as we all would want it. People live in harmony with the natural world and........

THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS

Silent Spring is Rachel Carson's vehicle for persuading the U.S. public about the dangers of insecticides. Her persuasive intent is clear from the beginning of the book and reiterated at key points throughout its pages. Carson knew that in order to persuade the public, she had to inform it first. Her book therefore gives the first lesson in ecology most of her readers ever would have had. She doesn't just describe the ecology of the earth, but even describes the ecology of the human body. She does so in order to explain the complicated process in which chemicals in the environment result in cancer in the individual.

In her persuasive intent, Rachel Carson uses two dominant rhetorical means of persuasion: the ethical appeal and the logical appeal. The ethical appeal calls on the reader's sense of right and wrong. Most readers of Carson's time hadn't ever recognized humanity's moral responsibility toward the earth and its creatures. Carson thus had to build this sense of ethical responsibility in her readers by acquainting them with the intricate and delicate functioning of the..........

The complete study guide is currently available as a downloadable PDF, RTF, or MS Word DOC file from the PinkMonkey MonkeyNotes download store. The complete study guide contains summaries and notes for all of the chapters; detailed analysis of the themes, plot structure, and characters; important quotations and analysis; detailed analysis of symbolism, motifs, and imagery; a key facts summary; detailed analysis of the use of foreshadowing and irony; a multiple-choice quiz, and suggested book report ideas and essay topics.