Dry Bones, Reaction Paper Example

A Creative Writing Introduction as Avant-Garde

“Only silence lay over the fields and wood and marsh.” (Carson 22) Rachel Carson knew how to the capture that silence. She could have wrote a very important book with facts about her day and pollution, and any readers would pat her on the back, yawn, and forget about her. Everyone knows that reports of biology tend to be dull, dry, or completely boring. Even experts in the field may have trouble keeping their attention on the research from beginning to end. The data may tell the bones of a story, but the meat of creative writing disappears and leaves an empty feeling to the body of research.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, chose a different approach for the first chapter of her book about the effects that pollution has on the biology of the plants, animals, and people in a community. The book goes on to produce a very real documentary of situations which produced one or more of the bad effects which she describes in her fictitious first pages. Carson shows the reader that some of the worst substances released on earth only helped solved very minor problems that were not worth the damage done to health and happiness in America. She describes the rise of pesticides in the 1950’s and how the release of this very powerful and sickening substance was spread throughout the US to get rid of fire ants. Later in the book Carson also draws attention to the spraying of these harmful pesticides on private land, upsetting the public who were exposed to these risks without their permission. Not only that, as Carson points out in her scary introduction, pesticides that make their way into the water supply can cause illnesses in humans and even lead to death if it corrupts the water supply. Even the people who knew about the spraying and about the possible effects rarely knew how often different pesticides and pollutants were sprayed without any permission or scientific monitoring.

Summary

Rachel Carson argues that the natural beauty of the world suffers disasters and death because of the pollution of careless people. In the first two pages of her book, she explains what life in America would be like without worrying about these negative effects. Her description reminds the reader of one of the old American natural books, like Walden, from the years before the types and uses of technology increased and making more things and leaving more waste was possible. In the time that Carson describes, life was simpler, and that sounds appealing to any reader who reads past Carson’s first two paragraphs and discovers “new kinds of sickness…children struck suddenly at play and [dead] within hours…roadsides lined with brown and withered vegetation as though swept by fire”. (21-22)

Her description of this darker, future side of the town takes twice as long as the first introduction. The happier side of the town creates a connection to the reader’s pathos for a time which many people imagine to be something like the innocence of the 1950’s. The whole image builds around this picnics and order way of looking at the world before it moves on to the pathos of seeing those dreams crushed in a cruel and lasting way. These first pages of Silent Spring move through the scenery like a person walking through the scene, taking in one set of images or one area at a time, experiencing the shock when everything begins to turn dark and dead.

Analysis

As works of non-fiction, reports of biology depend upon many statistics and long, detailed descriptions about the ways in which things were done, observations, testing, and theories. These reports also dig deep into past research and discuss decades of important discoveries that only a few experts in the whole world care about or need to know. This chapter provides only the introduction to Carson’s larger argument about the effects of chemicals and human misbehavior on the environment. Pechenik writes that a biological lab report should include: 1) a reference for every fact stated, 2) the definitions and details of specific terminology, 3) the results of a test- not an attempt to prove a theory, 4) include only brief, relevant data and facts, and 5) write about the test in its final form, as working theories tend to change between the first draft and the final testing phase. If many details, tests, or variables exist in the tests, then these are labeled with numbers or letters and tracked with a chart which helps the tester keep everything separate and keep the test reliable.

Pechenik’s fourth element of lab reports- which calls for brief, relevant writing- adds that any description that is necessary to understanding the conditions of the testing and results should be included. Rachel Carson’s first chapter, “A Fable for Tomorrow”, goes way outside of that element, including creative writing as though the town really stood in exactly that way. The title itself shows that Carson made no attempt to stick to reality. She called it a fable, a creative story which teaches a lesson about the way that people should act. This reaction paper now holds more elements of a lab report than Carson’s first chapter. Still, Carson’s before and after look at the same town is relevant- even if other biological reports and books consider it less important than the facts.

Most biological reports jump into a summary of the findings and the questions used to reach an answer. Carson’s creative writing approach accomplishes the same effects. She lets the reader know about cause-and-effect and asks a single broad question around which she piles the facts of her studies. She asks: “What has already silenced the voices of spring in countless towns in America?” (22) This question has a real answer that can be solved by many different causes of pollution. If less gas, chemicals, toxic waste, and other harmful substances were released, then the problem would stop getting worse. It must reach that stage before real progress on fixing the after-effects of hazardous pollution can be made.

Critique

Rachel Carson begins with interesting words: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.” (21) It sounds like a charming scene from Snow White, a fairy tale perfect world, more beloved as she continues to describe the town’s plants and animals as they lived naturally. Carson could have done this in many ways. She chose the dramatic way of telling the story and chose to describe the town as though she was dropped right in the middle of some heaven.

Just when the reader begins to feel comfortable with the peaceful setting, Carson changes her tactics, warning: “Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change… everywhere a shadow of death” (21)makes her point about chemical damage without putting her readers to sleep or without the reader wondering if she knows what she reports. Chapter 1 shows the world as beautiful as it could be if pollution never happens, and this introduction changed the mind of the readers. This extra creative writing makes the reader trust and like her more and makes the facts come across stronger. The selection of details makes the scene sound like some end-of-the-world science fiction, and the pages combine the uneasy feeling of science fiction with the guesswork and imagination of fantasy in Carson’s “Fable for Tomorrow”.

The most confusing part of Carson’s introduction is why she chooses to switch gears so quickly. After half a page of description of this perfect world, she begins talking about the doom and gloom of animal and plant deaths. After she made her point strong, she tells the reader that she does not describe a single real town but that this one is a stand-in for every beautiful old part of America. If this town has no name then it can be anywhere and at any time that she describes. Combining these disasters into one fictional place was a smart move by the author, but the voices of spring had more talking to do before they were silenced. At this point, Carson ran the risk of her readers feeling abandoned or of realizing that the introduction was fiction. They might have written off the entire book as a piece of environmental fluff.

However, this constant surprise element is very effective. At times, it felt like whip-lash going through the emotional ups and downs between sunshine, death, and “this town does not actually exist”, but this style of writing serves as a tool to keep the readers’ attention focused. (Carson 22) If they lost focus for more than a couple of paragraphs, they might stumble across the paragraph which considers possible causes (witchcraft, enemies, and the people themselves) and think that they skipped several pages. This writing also had the advantage of a sense of urgency. Carson passes through years in a blink. The reader passes through paragraphs in a blink. The pages move quickly from one story into another and into a truth that in some ways was stranger than fiction. That was years ago. Her vision of the polluted world and its death and illness seems much closer to today, especially as more concern about global warming draws more research and green recycling plans involving everyone from huge companies with thousands of employees to school-workers and their students. In her day, this scene might have been considered an extreme example, an overstatement designed to scare the easily fooled, but it foreshadowed some of the worst effects of government use of chemicals: water corruption, health problems following pesticides or nuclear fallout, animals leaving their natural homes to try to survive in places that were never meant for them. That is not fiction; that is today’s reality.

Conclusion

It is often said that there is a time and place for everything. The same applies to writing. There is a time to follow the guidelines that others set out before and there is a time to explore new ways. Avant-garde writing aims to take everything that we know and turn it the other way around. Sometimes the results show a better mix which changes the way that people think, and sometimes the results fall in a big mess. Either way, if people never change or move forward, progress will stop. Science will stop testing theories and start accepting them as true. False theories would go unchanged since it wouldn’t change the working of the world to fix them. Hope would die, because the injustices or wars of today would be the same tomorrow and years from now. Increasing global awareness about pollution and conservation would stop producing even the smallest results because there would be no effects to prove the importance of giving up an easy, lazy way of life. The study of movements in literature and other arts would be a thing of the past, because all writers and artists would move toward the accepted means. The avant-garde is needed because they love nothing more than to shake things up, and that serves its own great purpose in society.

Avant-garde writing becomes inspirational to read. Not all planned writing must be structured and average, following the smooth up and down of a regular conversation. If Rachel Carson can find a way to make a discussion of pollution interesting, then creative writing can make any topic more persuasive. If a writer gets bored or distracted with what they put on paper, they can assume that for the reader it is much worse. Even writing anything requires practice. People remember the rules and usually hold onto at least one part of what they knew before- even when all they want to do is rebel. Carson follows the rules of fiction in a non-fiction paper, but every writer has to find some way to break through the ice and boredom of the reader. If we take the avant-garde approach that Rachel Carson uses in “A Fable of Tomorrow”, then the first step is to connect to a feeling that strikes a nerve when we think about a topic. Everyone has a hot-button topic. As you think about the subject, main points will probably pop up. For Carson, the physical effects can be divided between the plants, the animals, and the people, and the emotional effects can be divided into isolation or depression related to lost glories. Connect to a strong feeling and write. Unlike with other styles of writing, avant-garde says not to worry. Think of the way that it can be done before worrying about what writing rules you learned as a student who did as they were told.

Works Cited

Carson, Rachel. “A Fable for Tomorrow”. Silent Spring, Chapter 1. Print.

Pechenik, Jan A. A short guide to writing about Biology. pp. 54-102, Tufts University: Harper Collins College Publishers. 1993. Web. Retrieved 6 April 2014 from <http://writing2.richmond.edu/training/project/biology/intro.html>.