Hidden Organisms

The Marginal World describes the author’s visit to the shoreline. While there, she discoveries many layers to life on Earth and the sea’s influence on it. The author, Rachel Carson, was a marine biologist and conservationist that wrote about and studied nature during the 1940’s and 1950’s. In fact, much of her works helped start a global environmental movement to help preserve nature as it was. Rachael Carson wrote The Marginal World to show her readers the overlooked parts of the shoreline. In her essay, she describes small coves home to small microorganisms, mosses around the shore structures, and animals inhabiting small trenches scattered on the beach. By exposing her readers to this new world that was often overlooked by shore-visitors, Carson aimed to change the way her readers looked at nature. Her essay uses many strategies to persuade readers that the overlooked parts of the shore are just as important as the sand and water that everyone knows and loves. Carson directs her writing toward readers who fail to understand the significance of the life present on the shore. People that just go to the shore to have a good time, play in the water, and sunbathe do not understand the beauty of life on the shoreline, and could benefit from Carson’s work. Carson’s use of figurative language appeals to the pathos of her readers. For example, she uses metaphors like “intricate fabric of life” (Carson par. 5) and similes like “small, exquisitely colored mollusk…looking like scattered petals of pink roses” (Carson par. 17) to convey a sense of serenity and beauty that appeals to the emotions of her readers. Overall, Carson’s purpose was achieved. She was able to convey to her audience that there is an overlooked section of life on the shoreline, one that holds an underlying beauty inside its hiding places. 

The above cartoon continues the discussion of overlooked sea wildlife, but this time adding the wrinkle of the Exxon Valdez accident. The cartoon was drawn by Seppo in 1991.