Summer Entry 2

The Marginal World

by Rachel Carson

Pages 214-219

            Rachel Carson was a writer, marine biologist, and conservationist.  In college, she began studying English, but ended up majoring in Biology because of her strong passion for nature, especially the seas and oceans.  Some of her most famous works include The Sea Around Us, The Edge of the Sea, Under the Sea Wind (reissue of The Sea Around Us), and Silent Spring.  The Marginal World, which appeared in The Edge of the Sea, advocates for all the diverse animals and plants caught between land and sea.  Written in the first-person, Carson’s essay strives to generate public interest in the conservation of nature using personal experiences of the amazing beauty of the shore.  

Appealing to the imaginations of her readers, Carson depicts an exquisite, hidden tide pool, one Carson refers to as the “fairy cave,” where there are “creatures so exquisitely fashioned that they seemed unreal, their beauty too fragile to exist in a world of crushing force” (Carson 216).  The hyperbole portrays a hydroid Tubularia flower-animal that seems entirely magical because it is “too fragile to exist,” and yet it does.  The paradoxical existence of a fragile Tubularia instills in readers a desire to preserve such beauty for future generations to experience and love.

Carson also appeals to her readers’ emotions by creating feelings of nostalgia.  Carson alludes to John James Audubon, an ornithologist known for his detailed paintings of birds in their natural habitats.  She writes: “I wished I might see what Audubon saw… the flamingo, once so numerous on this coast” (Carson 219).  Here, Carson subtly points out that flamingo populations had died out at this shore.  Carson’s allusion to the incredible beauty that Audubon would have seen as he painted the flamingos, causing her audience to feel wistful.  This serves as an appeal to emotion, as well as a warning of what losing parts of nature is like, which further inspires the public into action for the protection of such an extraordinary environment exclusive to our planet earth.  

(331 words)

The Shore

These stars are only found in these tide pools on 
these beaches of this beautiful earth.

Source: Greg Clure’s Star-Gazing in Santa Monica