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Symbols
Silence plays an important symbolic role in Carson’s book. Its significance is introduced in the opening chapter, as Carson envisions a small town that is eerily silent, all of its natural life having been destroyed by a mysterious powder. In the book, silence comes to represent the death of nature, and the end of an idyllic past full of birdsong that accompanied the changing seasons. Through this symbol, Carson implies that if humans do not change they ways they act regarding their impact on nature, we will quickly find ourselves in a lonely, bare world where the beauty of the natural world has been irretrievably lost.
Silence Quotes in Silent Spring
The Silent Spring quotes below all refer to the symbol of Silence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song. This sudden silencing of the song of birds, this obliteration of the color and beauty and interest they lend to our world have come about swiftly, insidiously, and unnoticed by those whose communities are as yet unaffected.
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Silence Symbol Timeline in Silent Spring
The timeline below shows where the symbol Silence appears in Silent Spring. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: A Fable for Tomorrow
...its wake. Inexplicable illnesses, among both adults and children, puzzle the town’s doctors. An eerie silence reigns, as birds are found everywhere dead or dying, trembling violently.
(full context)
...themselves responsible for its destruction. “A grim specter”, she writes, has crept upon us to silence the voices of spring, and her book will attempt to unmask it.
(full context)
Chapter 8: And No Birds Sing
Here, Carson returns to the symbol of silence, and to the threat of chemical “biocides” against birds, whose absence is often most acutely...
(full context)
Chapter 12: The Human Price
...have introduced into the world ourselves. They have the power to render the world uninhabitable, “silent and birdless.”
(full context)
