Ethos in "Big Yellow Taxi"

Songwriter Joni Mitchell, writer and singer of “Big Yellow Taxi” appeals to Ethos, mostly extrinsically. Throughout and beyond her career, Mitchell served as an activist for the Environmentalist movements. Her passion for the environment is expressed explicitly in many of her songs as she presses for better treatment of the world around us. Joni observed the harm that humans were doing to the environment and lyricized those findings in order to spread her message across the nation. Aside from her observations, Mitchell’s education at Calgary’s Alberta College of Art provides further credibility to her arguments. This is important as, an educated author tends to be one the audience is able to trust more deeply. In the span of her career Mitchell wrote and performed a multitude of songs in support of the environmentalist movement including “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Woodstock”, and “Little Green.” The wide variety of songs on this topic lends credence to the idea that Mitchell was truly an educated and passionate member of the environmentalist movement. Joni Mitchell in the song "Big Yellow Taxi" appeals to Ethos extrinsically in the audience through her role environmental activism, prior education, and additional environmentalist songs.

Sarah Neydon

Kairos in Big Yellow Taxi

Joni Mitchell wrote "Big Yellow Taxi" in 1970 during the time people were starting to understand that we need to make a change in how we treat the environment. Mitchell wrote "Big Yellow Taxi" because she rode in a taxi to a hotel in Hawaii. When she looked out the window she was able to see the real beauty that our environment is, but when she looked down all she could see was a parking lot, a long seemingly never ending parking lot, "the paved paradise put up a parking lot." When she released this, this among other things were convincing people to look more closely at environmental issues.The song was a big success because people were paying special attention to environmental issues especially in the 1960's and 1970's. If Mitchell made the realization, that heart breaking moment when she looked out the window, decades earlier the song would not have made that much of an impact and would have most likely been lost in history. Mitchell made this realization along with a lot of other people and helped others make the realization when they listened to this song. Because of the perfect timing it was released the song made an impact in the future and was often covered and kept coming back in mainstream media.

Pathos in Silent Spring

Rachel Carson made sure to pay attention on logos and kairos but was heavy on pathos. Pathos is emotional appeal which for most people is very effective to persuade them toward a certain stance. Carson wanted to make a change in her readers by making them feel bad for these horrifying truths of our world and want them to make a change. Her purpose was to make us learn to coexist with nature instead of destroying it and to get people to understand her intent she use pathos.  "Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation." Carson makes sure we realize the common ignorance that man has, that we are destroying our beautiful earth with our own hands. This reminds me of picture with a similar message.  Not understanding what we are doing we are destroying what created us. This picture encompasses a lot of the pathos of Silent Spring.  "Strontium 90, released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to the earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death." Carson provides a graphic image of how what we created is killing us slowly. "New forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure well." Our water used to be clean our vegetation used to be safe, and our livestock used to be healthy. These quotes among many others are clear representations of pathos within Silent Spring. Overall Carson's message she got to us is not only are we killing our environment, we are killing ourselves and a change needs to be made.

Logos in "Big Yellow Taxi"

Joni Mitchell's hit 1969 song "Big Yellow Taxi" is one of the most popular conservationist songs in all of American pop. Having been covered several times since its release, most notably by The Counting Crows, the song is a clear appeal to logos. Its primary message is extreme human development and the disrespect for nature this subsequently creates. It revolves around the line "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". Now specifically this "paradise" is most likely Waikiki beach in Honolulu, the site of the famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel. It is the pink hotel mentioned in the opening verse, with several other locations around Hawaii being mentioned throughout the song. The logic of the song is that these natural wonders are being replaced by generic, modern development. The lasting impression of the song is that people never understand the effects of modernization until all the natural beauty has been replaced by development. Companies will charge to see nature, land that was natural for thousands of years will be replaced by development, and people will not notice what has been done until it is much too late. In conclusion the appeal to logos sums up as a call for people to notice this denaturalization before it is too late. Human greed will never end, and nature will pay the price unless people can act and stop the recklessness.
Robert Dries

Logos in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Along with pathos and kairos Carson makes sure to appeal to logos as well. Strong logos is exemplified by facts and logic that influence the reader. Logos is used to make man evaluate how they are negatively affecting the environment. Throughout the book logos was used but even this excerpt it was predominant. The excerpt was primarily about the way our use of chemicals is killing the environment. "It took hundereds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth," it took a long time to create the homeostasis that existed in the world. This homeostasis is no longer present to get back to homeostasis "time is essential" however this is irrelevant because "in the modern world there is no time." If we do not make changes fast, our world could never be the same. She reasons with her audience, one of our biggest problems was we have "synthetic creation's" created in laboratories these creations have no place in nature and are affecting the balance. By not just appealing to ethos she connected to her audience that listens to fact and cold hard truths. Making this book having the most affect in peoples mind about the truths of our environment.

Pathos in "Big Yellow Taxi"

In the song “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell appeals to pathos in the audience using music, visual imagery and strong diction. The background music shifts from an upbeat, fast pace to a slower, more somber tone during the chorus. This change is impactful in that the listener takes note of the chorus’ differences from the other verses. Mitchell also sings very fast-paced, which expresses a sense of exigency in her message. The descriptions of specific events that Mitchell encountered such as a “pink hotel,” “paved paradise,” and a “tree museum” provide evidence that what she is explaining is valid. These allusions also allow the listener to comprehend the song’s message on a deeper and more impactful level. The song references DDT using an ultimatum between the minimal detail of “spots on my apple” in comparison to the lives of “the birds and the bees.” This shows the harm that DDT had on the environment and how much was being given up for generally little return. Throughout the song, Mitchell is very direct with her opinions and does not sugar coat her intended message. For example, the chorus states, “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” expressing her disapproval of the urbanization and human pollution that was prominent in the 60s. The direct language prevents the audience from misinterpreting the information presented. All in all, Joni Mitchell's song, “Big Yellow Taxi” generously appeals to pathos in an attempt to impact the listeners and stain their minds with her message.

Sarah Neydon

Audience Analysis of "Big Yellow Taxi"

The audience of “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell is everyone who is literate in English. The most attentive audience would be those who partook in or sympathized with the 1960’s Environmentalism movement. Majority of these people know that chemical pollution is a problem in the world, however many do not fully comprehend the severity of this issue. For example, DDT was widely used as a pesticide in the 60s and since it was so commonly used, many underestimated the threat it placed on the environment. The audience of this text would care because their home, Earth, is suffering from the mistreatment of the environment. Further, if an individual was obliged to adjust his lifestyle due to pollution, this person would be more likely to care about environmentalism. The information presented in “Big Yellow Taxi” would be received graciously, because the song does not blame the audience, rather blames an ominous third party, “they”. Additionally, the problem is explained in a figurative manner and the song is sung in an upbeat, catchy tone, which appeals to the audience. Silent Spring, in comparison, is more accusatory than “Big Yellow Taxi,” as it openly explains the impact human pollution has on the environment. In general, however, Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" would be understood by the audience as having a severe impact on the audience.

Sarah Neydon

Kairos in Silent Spring

Kairos in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring started a revolution. In looking into the rhetorical situation of her book, it becomes increasingly clear that Carson's work began not only the campaign to use fewer pesticides in agriculture, but became one of the sparks of the entire environmentalist movement. The book mostly revolves around the use of DDT. While some had been skeptical of the pesticide, most had accepted it as a useful tool for agriculture. It was seen as a major innovation, meaning the anti DDT rhetoric was essentially nonexistent, save for a few experts whose criticisms went unheard when the chemical was first introduced during World War 2. One can think of Silent Spring in its rhetorical situation as kind of the Nevermind environmental movement, where the ideas may have been nebulous and forming, but this one work sparked a change in the conversation that we still feel to this day. It was a perfect time for her to write the book as the chemical had just reached its peak in terms of use. All the major companies of the day were using DDT, the ever present and ever controversial Monsanto being a key advocate of the pesticide. It had become such a pervasive force in agribusiness that to question it seemed nearly heretical, and yet had she not people may have never taken a stand. Her simple action of exposing the effects of the chemical caused a pivot in the publics perception, making it apparent that to blindly trust innovation has the potential side effect of sacrificing the integrity of the environment. Thanks to Carson, the public began to question and to work to save the planet from humanity's darker tendencies, all from a kairotic moment that seems not to have existed at all. 
Robert Dries