Silent Spring

The following quote "The sedge is withr'd from the lake, And no birds sing," (Keats)

seems like a very simple sentence with no meaning to it. However, after reading Chapter 6 of

Silent Spring , I realized how loaded the comment is with meaning. The quote is describing

humans and how humans treat the plants here on earth. The quote describes a scene where

humans continue to destroy plants because they feel that they are in the way or that the plants are

not appealing to look at. However, the plants that humans kill each day with chemicals and

pesticides end up ruining the complete area and stripping it of the natural beauty of the land. The

situation cannot be fair when chemicals are used. Humans today expect that when they kill a plant

then that is the end of it and all is fair. This cannot be more wrong according to this quote. When

you kill one thing many others will die along with it. In Chapter 6 of Rachel Carson's Silent

Spring Carson tells of how after chemicals are used many beautiful roadsides and lands were

destroyed and the edges along rivers and were destroyed also which left animals without food and

water. The first part of the quote is describing this. "The sedge is withr'd from the lake" is

another way of showing the destroying of plants. The sedge that was withr'd in the quote has

been stripped of its natural beauty. This was caused by chemicals used along this lake to kill the

plants that were unattractive to the eye according to the land owner. The second part of the

quote "and no birds sing" is describing the consequence of killing those plants. Once there were

animal life along this lake. Birds sang and took baths in it. When chemicals were used, the lake

became contaminated and along with that the birds left that area. In the Chapter, Carson

describes a situation like this. It was a situation where sage was destroyed. When this happened

the animals that used this sage slowly went along with it. The quote "and no birds sing" is telling

of after the area was damaged by chemicals and the sedge was withr'd, the animals that adapted

there also felt withr'd and damaged so they left. This left the area without birds singing.

Carson writes about the beauty of the land and plants. She also tells the uses of these so

called "weeds" and why they should not be destroyed by chemicals. Carson tells of a way that

when the plants need to be removed, they can be removed safely without affecting the land around

it the way that chemicals do. Carson does not feel that there is hope for our future. The quote I

chose to use tells of no hope either. The quote is telling that this is what happens when chemicals

are used. In the world today more and more chemicals are being produced to kill off certain

plants. Today's knowledge of chemicals is increasing and each day more people are replaced with

the work of machines. These machines make it easy to spread the chemicals across the land and

can only do harm in this situation of our environment

. Increasing pollution of these chemicals are