First, the text effectively uses pathos to appeal to the reader’s sense of fear and hope for the serious environmental disruption by presenting hypothetical disasters on a town. In reading her story of this American town, the reader, with fear, witness what happens when farmers blanket the landscape with pesticides. In the last paragraph that “this town does not actually exist,” it is given cause for hope; however, it is an appeal to force fallacy. Throughout the text, the author exaggerates to describe the progress of the town’s downfall and then suddenly mentions, “The people had done it themselves” to appeal the readers’ feelings of guilt without giving scientific evidence. According to a critical article in The Heartland Institute, “Carson's biggest fear was overblown and has not been supported by later research, and Carson relies more on fear of the unknown than on scientific proof to capture the reader's attention” (Bast). Although the author grabs the readers’ attention, she appeals to the reader’s fear rather than providing examples to support the claim. In addition, an imaginary town’s tragedy impliedly threatens the readers that they could suddenly die before they realize the cause of the disaster. Therefore, the text effectively appeals to the emotion of the readers’ fear and guilt to overlook its fallacy.
Next, the text’s logos is persuasive that alert us to the clear danger of pesticides the “white granular powder” to the environment. Even though the composite environmental disaster she describes has not occurred yet, she feels compelled to inform her readers that each of the individual disasters has happened somewhere in a real community. But, one of the appeals seems to be a sweeping generalization fallacy that people often commit a general rule. The author claims the horrible disaster. “Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death.” As described in the text, might happen and one of the environmental disasters in the text already have happened in some real communities. Thus, the author wants people to awaken to the realization of what can happen in the real world. However, the author gives hypothetical evidence to explain how people’s actions relate to this destruction and why people do not realize it and remain idle while their community is dying. In addition, according to an article in the New York Times, “Ms. Carson used dubious statistics, and she cited scary figures showing a recent rise in deaths from cancer, but she did not consider one of the chief causes. Actually, the cancer death rate was falling in the decade before ‘Fable for Tomorrow’ and it kept falling in the rest of the century” (Tierney). The article indicates that the author might have used irrelevant evidence to support her claims, and there is no scientific evidence in the text; thus, the text’s logic is a faulty generalization.
Explanation:
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