After people became aware of the negative impacts of the pesticide on both the nature and the human, they started to change their consuming habits. More people tried buying healthy vegetables that weren’t grown with the usage of pesticides. However, still in 1960s, people’s notion about the negative impacts of pesticides wasn’t established yet. Farmers relied on pesticides that can have a detrimental effect on both nature and human beings. Therefore, the author of this passage is claiming that people should not use parathion since it poses a potential threat to humans, animals, and wildlife by appealing to the reader’s logical thought, posing the rhetorical question, and utilizing pathos to establish the emotional connection.
First of all, the author uses logos and appeals to the reader’s logical thought process by giving out many examples to support his claim. In order to talk about who parathions are dangerous for the animals, the author talks about the Indiana farmers who used parathion and inevitably killed the birds who were feeding in nearby cornfields. Moreover, the author suggests that those parathions weren’t the only necessary method to keep birds out of the field. This logically shows that people can benefit by not using parathion, and parathion only has negative side effects. Therefore, this successfully supports the overall claim of eliminating the parathion usage. Moreover, in the third paragraph, the author mentions California orchards in order to logically make the connection between parathion and the human being. The author claims that the worker of the farm physically suffered and nearly died due to the usage of parathion. This example clearly demonstrates how parathion does have negative impacts on the users as well. Therefore, this also gives great support to the claim by showing why people should avoid parathion.
The author then uses rhetorical questions to support his main claim. In the third paragraph, the author asks, “Does Indiana still raise any boys who run through woods or field and might even explore the sides of a river?”. By asking this question, the author shows that parathion can impact not just the workers in the field but also the children who have no relationship to the parathion. This further supports the author’s claim by showing the further impact of parathion as in a whole society. Moreover, in the fourth paragraph, the author asks about the right to decide to poison nature. This question well supports the main claim by establishing the connection between people’s decisions and the impact on nature, for nature doesn’t have the power to resist people’s decisions.
Finally, the author successfully uses pathos by appealing to the reader’s emotion to further support his claim. For example, he uses the word “innocent” in order to emphasize the idea of normal people getting affected by the parathion. The word “innocent” has a very positive connotation, and thus establishes the emotion of guiltiness by positively portraying the direct victim. Moreover, the author uses the word “unnoticed” to portray the image of wild animals dying without getting even noticed. This kind of word choice again creates the reader’s emotion of guiltiness and touches upon their conscience. Therefore, these emotional appeals clearly support the main claim- they convince people to stop the usage of parathion.
To conclude, the author’s appeal to the reader’s logical thought, usage of the rhetorical question, and utilization of pathos all contributed to establishing his main idea: people should stop using the parathion because of its potential threat to humans, animals, and wildlife.
Writer: Minji Kim (Clara)
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