Silent Spring Chapter 5: Cycle is the Word

Cycles. Six letters, two syllables, one word. Yet, this word is a significant one, as I believe it is the most important word in chapter five of Silent Spring. This word, although small sums up Carson’s argument in chapter five fully and clearly.

In chapter five, Carson goes into the complexity of the soil and its different relationships. Low and behold, these relationships happen to be in cycles. For example, there is the relationship between the soil and the earthworms. The earthworms feed on the enriched soil, they aerate it by digging holes and bring the good soil to the top, help nitrate it for smaller organisms, and their excrement helps enrich the soil again.  Every organism therefore has its place and purpose. Thanks to DDT and other insecticides, these perfect, cyclical relationships have been disrupted or broken. Studies have shown that “BHC, aldrin, lindane, heptachlor and DDD all prevented nitrogen-fixing bacteria from forming the necessary root nodules on leguminous plants”. (pg 57) Cycles could not be more important in this chapter because they are the clock that nature runs on, as Carson shows. Even her structure in this chapter was a cycle. She goes from writing about how the soil is the basis of life and is constantly changing, to the small bacterial organisms that effect the soil , then the larger ones like earthworms and how the insecticides are affecting them and then  to the human race and how we are being affected by the soil’s destruction. Carson even gives a great example of how a company that makes baby foods got into financial woes because they refused to use food from pesticide treated land and couldn’t find any. Instead of coming back to the beginning of the cycle with the soil being left alone,  Carson shows what it is like when the soil is destroyed, showing the plight of Hops growers in Idaho , where Heptachlor destroyed their soil and therefore their crops. By structuring her chapter like this, Carson shows the effects of this broken soil cycle.

The circle of life, it’s a path unwinding. (Thank you Lion King!) That’s exactly what Carson stylistically shows in her writing in chapter five. A perfect example of this is when she says “The soil exists in state of constant change, taking part in cycles that have no beginning and no end” pg 53). In doing that she creates almost a visual of this cycle and something that people can understand and relate to. Its almost as if she has a reverence for the cycle, even pointing out that  pointing out the soil supports the earths “living green mantle” and that’s because its constantly changing. She remains with this tone throughout the chapter. So in chapter five… cycles.. they’re important.