The Plastic Flamingo: A Natural History By Jennifer Price

Price uses imagery by acknowledging how the pink flamingos became popular in America around the 1930s and have made a big hit into our nation. She describes the flamingos by “tangerine, broiling magenta, livid methyl green” to provide an image of the flamingos in the 1950s. Her choice of colors is to picture a flamingo at that time of popularity and also to describe how Americans sense of style has grown bolder and more noticeable (Price 34-36). Since Americans just came out of depression, it was a time where Americans celebrated color and boldness towards a new generation.

Price juxtaposes the American view of the flamingo with other culture’s views of the majestic birds. She says Americans exploited the flamingo, “reproducing it, brightening it, and sending it.” She compares these actions with the reverence other cultures have for the flamingo and determines that Americans tend to pervert and exploit beauty for profit, rather than preserve the original

Price's use of similes/metaphors reveal her views on American culture. For instance, at the end of her essay, Price compares the plastic flamingo to a real flamingo. However, instead of describing the real flamingo as wading across a sea of water, she describes it as “wading across an inland sea of grass.” (line 61) This shows Americans clouding up the image of a real flamingo in order to suit their own interests. Instead of having flamingos in water like they are meant to be, they make fake flamingos to display on lawns in order to exhibit “leisure and extravagance.” (line 19) Another example would be when Price describes many flamingo based buildings such as motels, restaurants, and lounges that sprang up all across the country in the 1950s. (line 26) She compares these flamingo based buildings to “semiotic sprouts” (line 28) that just shout out “flamingo” in order to take advantage of the flamingo trend. These buildings using the “namesake Flamingo” (line 27) adopted this new trend and threw out the old in order to “stand out” (line 25) and draw in “riches.” (line 22) Thus, this shows the adaption of the new trend, no matter how much it had deviated from the norm, in order

Price continues building her portrayal of United States culture as superficial and materialistic with detailed descriptions of household items. By downsizing from large-scale hotels described in her first two paragraphs to small-scale household items in her third paragraph, Price exemplifies the materialistic ways of United States culture. Americans purchased “washing machines, cars, and kitchen countertops” in the various shades of pink. The desire of Americans to own the audacious color displays their need for material possessions. Price describes the shades of pink available,

In the essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History” by Jennifer price; the author shows implicitly her idea and point of view on the topic on the United States culture. The idea is that the U.S.A‘s culture is very overbearing, this is shown by her view on how Americans are so worried with their image that is seen by society. Price uses many writing techniques to express her view on United States culture, by the usage of diction, tone, and symbolism Price is able to convey her analysis on the greed and the corruption occurring in the American culture.

One of the ways the death of the American Dream is demonstrated in the Great Gatsby is through “enchanted colors.” Yellow is the color of gold, and traditionally symbolizes wealth, beauty, and materialism. After Jay Gatsby becomes rich, with a mansion of his own, everything is yellow. Gatsby’s tie is yellow; his car is yellow, the buttons on Daisy’s dress are yellow. At one point in the novel, Nick Carraway even describes some flowers smelling like gold, as it states in chapter five, “...the sparkling odor of jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.” All of these yellow and gold things suggest that the Jazz Age was a time in which materialism was the most important thing, and being wealthy was all that mattered. In the 1920’s, and still today, the American Dream was, and is, to be wealthy, and to attain something greater that almost seems out of reach.

Jennifer Price uses diction to characterize American Culture as materialistic and thoughtless in her first and second paragraphs. To add color to her first paragraph, Price uses a variety of words including “splashed”, “boldness”, “flocking”, “pizzaz” and “playful”. This word choice characterizes the flamingos, and through comparison, American society as valuing glamour and consequently, wealth. In describing the new plastic flamingos Price even goes as far as to describe flamingos as “synonymous with wealth”, and the middle class as “eager” to enjoy the flamingo culture, associated with wealth. She aids her characterization by calling the flamingos “souvenirs”, pointless chotskies that a person brings home to show off and display their wealth. She contrasts this with the irony that flamingos in America had already gone extinct by the nineteenth century. While describing this extinction,

The flamingo symbolized more than a bird or a plastic toy, it was a social status-a special icon. Price utilizes the flamingo as a deeper meaning, one to evaluate the culture of America. The flamingo is first introduced as staking claims to boldness and being pink-an eye-catching color. Price states, “Since the 1930’s, vacationing Americans had been flocking to Florida and returning home with flamingo souvenirs.” She then mentions, “...the Flamingo, had made the bird synonymous with wealth and pizzazz.” Jennifer Price already mentions that the flamingo is not just any ordinary bird. When it “splashed into the 50’s market” it brought a symbol of wealth and fanciness. It was eye catching, it was a trend, it was an instant favorite. The flamingo was the new thing, everyone either had or knew someone who had one. Price then reflects on the history of the flamingo by mentioning, “No wonder that the subtropical species stood out so loudly when Americans in temperate New England reproduced it, brightened it, and sent it wading across an inland sea of grass.” Price states again that the pink flamingo symbolized wealth and pizzazz, a social status, a fad, a lifestyle. She knew that the uniqueness of the flamingo would attract Americans from all over. Jennifer Price does a great job of associating it to a very glamorous and trendy American lifestyle.

Having no rights, being owned by other people, and being punished as your “master” sees fit. This was the reality for many people around the world in the early 1800 's. In the novel The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, this is illustrated clearly from the views of a white woman, Sarah Grimkè, and the perspective of a black woman, Hetty “Handful” Grimkè who was under the Grimke’s ownership. Sarah opposed the way of life for Southerners in Charleston where slavery was a common occurrence in every white’s household. With her abolitionist views, Sarah treats Handful as if she was any other white. In The Invention of Wings, slavery is seen from two perspectives: one is from the whites who see it as necessary and useful to have

Color plays a unique role in the world we live in today. Color can sway the way someone thinks, change a person’s actions, and cause someone to react a certain way. In preschool, children are taught colors and as peoples’ lives progress, they are able to associate specific colors with specific feelings or emotions. For example, the color red symbolizes extremes dealing with passionate love, seduction, violence, danger, anger and adventure. Edmund Wilson comments on how the colors play a huge role in The Great Gatsby in the quote, “The whole preposterous farrago is animated with life"-and "its color and gayety and movement gave it a distinction for literary criticism long accustomed to heaviness and dinginess in serious American fiction"(Wilson

In Jennifer Price’s essay, “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History” (1999), she proclaims that the United States has embraced the pink flamingo and its history. The author utilizes benevolent diction, enlightening metaphor, and alluding allusion. Price’s purpose to get people to understand the beauty of the pink flamingo in order to show her view of how the flamingo changed the culture of the United States. The author writes in a admirable tone for her audience of American citizens.

For the first ethos Price writes, “The plastics industries of the fifties favored flashy colors, which Tom Wolfe called ‘the new electrochemical pastels of the Florida littoral: tangerine, broiling magenta, livid pink, incarnadine, fuchsia demure, Congo ruby, methyl green.’ ” Also, Price brings in another person establishing credibility, “And as Karal Ann Marling has written, the ‘sassy pinks’ were ‘the hottest color of the decade.’ ” Price is comparing these two and saying how they both are agreeing on the fact that pink was popular for that time

Like the Rubik Cube in the 80’s or smart phones of today’s generation something has caught the attention of citizens, even a plastic pink bird that took the 50’s by storm. In the essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History,” Jennifer Price uses multiple rhetorical devices to demonstrate how American culture has been influenced.

Established magazine writer Jennifer Price’s essay, “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History”, argues that America’s culture is excessively concerned with material items, and much less concerned with individuality. Price addresses her opinion of American culture through syntax, diction, and tone. Price conveys her opinion of American culture through her use of syntax. In the second paragraph, Price discusses America’s past according to flamingos, crafting her sentence using exceptional syntax to reveal her true feelings towards the United States.

The Invention of Wings is a historical novel by Sue Monk Kidd that details a story of two struggles for freedom: the battle of Handful to find the wings her mother promised and the equally intense quest of Sarah to liberate her mind and spirit. This triumphant novel also speaks with wisdom about the nature of evil and injustice and the courage to dare what seems unattainable.