Breaking the Silence: Examining Rachel Carson and the Environmental Movement

Rachel Carson has achieved legendary status in the environmental movement. Her literary contributions introduced generations of people to the intricate splendors of the sea, and she is credited with introducing and legitimating the idea of ecology in public discourse. Carson's final work, Silent Spring, regarded as one of the formative tomes of environmentalism, is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Given Carson's prominence for the environmental movement, it is important to delve through the layers of mythology that surround her to examine the ideas, beliefs and arguments that she employed. Through close analysis of particular arguments made by Carson, the environmental movement may better understand the limitations of their own strategies as they apply to current situations. With this in mind, I will examine arguments that Carson has made, along with the assumptions behind those arguments, in The Sea Around Us and Silent Spring.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Oregon

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Heimerman, Karen M.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Clark, Suzanne

• Sea
• Environmental movement
• Rachel Carson
• Human nature
• Silent Spring

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/31647

OAI record oai:identifier

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Ascholarsbank.uoregon.edu%3A1794%2F31647