Because Silent Spring is an important scientific study and a passionate call for public policy changes, and deploys skillful writing in service of both those aspects, your evaluation of the author’s relative success or lack of it could apply to any of those dimensions. The question is calling for your personal critique, so, initially, you need to make some decisions about the importance of her goals and identify the ways in which she tries to support them.
Silent Spring has gained countless supporters over the years, as most readers are convinced by the wealth of scientific evidence she uses to substantiate her claims that DDT and other chemical pesticides had numerous harmful effects. If you conclude that she did support her claims adequately, you would point out specific cases in which she uses particular kinds of evidence, such as her discussion of the molecular structure of pesticides.
Carson also deploys...
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numerous instances of practices and policies that she deems short-sighted, to demonstrate the human consequences of the chemicals’ effects. Her contribution to establishing the importance of holistic ecology is often considered the book’s most long-lasting success. You could highlight cases that connect different aspects of those consequences, such as the descriptions of dead birds, polluted waters, and sterile soil.
While many people have praised Carson’s writing, others find fault with her style and approach. If you think she is too biased, for example, you might find instances when she appeals to the reader’s emotions and pays insufficient attention to the facts. Those who panned the book sometimes dismissed her approach as anecdotal. Along those lines, as well, the literary approach of opening the book with a “fable” did not appeal to some readers, and you might likewise find it out of place in a scientific work.
One of the most effective parts of Silent Spring is the fable that begins the book. Carson uses a fable of a mythical American town that is suddenly struck with a strange blight. She uses vivid and startling images, such as the following image of missing birds: "The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly." The fable presents the consequences of pesticides in startling and concrete terms that make the concept of the dangers of pesticides more accessible to readers.
Carson did exhaustive research, but it could be argued that she could have even strengthened her argument by using her own personal story. Carson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1960, which then metastasized. She could have written about her own battle with this disease, which ended her life in 1964 (at age 56), two years after the publication of Silent Spring. Her work led to the creation of a presidential commission and to the eventual banning of DDT, a pesticide. Though it is difficult to determine the cause of an individual's cancer, she was around pesticides a great deal in her work as a biologist and, later, as a nature writer. One of the major arguments of her book is that pesticides cause cancer in humans, and she potentially could have illustrated that with her own story.