The Marginal World

The essay was about the author's experiences at the beach, at the shoreline where the water and land meet. She describes the tide pools and the shoreline, and the almost surreal nature of these places. Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and writer, who was involved in environmental conservation, including the use of chemical pesticides. She wrote a book called Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to the minds of the people. This led to a change in pesticide policies, ultimately resulting in the ban of chemicals like DDT. The essay describes a few different locations, such as a cave that is only revealed at the lowest tides, a shoreline at night, and a southern coast. The author's purpose in writing this essay would be to describe these different locations and the emotions she was experiencing as she visited these places. She might also have been attempting to show that places like this are worth saving, to show that the environment is important because there are beautiful places like this. Her audience would be everyone, because everyone shares this experience, but probably primarily young adults because she uses high-level vocabulary and also because this group has more power to cause environmental change than anyone else. She uses analogies when describing things, such as calling the tide a "rhythm" or the "continuing flow" of time. She also uses allusion, when she says "Lilliputan beings swimming through dark pools". I think she achieved her purpose quite well, I really liked the way she described everything. She portrayed the emotions she experienced at these different locations well, and it was really easy to form a mental image of the places and things she was describing, from the tides to the different types of animal life. She uses a lot of descriptive language, such as "for the delicate, destructible, yet incredibly vital force that somehow holds its place amid the harsh realities of the inorganic world". Throughout the essay, she does an excellent job not only describing the things she saw, she also describes the emotions she felt as she was encountering these things, and I think this was an important part of her purpose as well. And if I'm correct in saying that she was looking for people be concerned about the environment, then I think she also achieved this because she described everything in such a way that makes the reader think that places like this are precious and need to preserved.

A location similar to those described throughout the essay.