T. C. Boyle's Top Of The Food Chain

T.C Boyle’s “Top of the Food Chain” is primarily written in an enthusiastic and occasionally sarcastic tone. The speaker carries on about cause and effect while discussing a hazardous chemical in a developing country. The main argument in T.C. Boyle’s “Top of the Food Chain is that there is a consequence to every action.

Top of the Food Chain is spoken in a tone that is trying to influence the Senator while downplaying all of the destruction that is being done to Borneo due to the use of DDT. Even though DDT has been banned in America it is still used in this developing country basically because they did not know any better and it was considered the fastest solution to the current problem. The scene is set by describing a little boy with no clothes covered with insects and his mother too sick to properly care for him. This helps create the argument that DDT was needed to quickly fix the problem of the mosquitos. Acting as if it was necessary to use without thinking of the long term effects.
The DDT had also killed many of the wasps that killed the caterpillars that ate the wood on their houses. The caterpillars had nothing to stop them in taking down the palms provided shelter for the local people. This was disregarded because at least they got rid of the mosquitos and wasps. Even though the local people no longer had shelter and could not sleep. With all of these other things now taken care of the flies became the major issue causing more disease. The DDT was then sprayed on the ground to help take care of the problem. Of course it was not taken into account that cats ate geckos and geckos ate flies. No one had a concern about taking care of the flies until the cats started dying and the rat population grew and took over again creating new issues and