Merrin Thomas Block 1 AP Lang: Pink Flamingo Jennifer Prices The Plastic Pink Flamingo is an informative passage about

the pink flamingo with hidden meaning to her views of American values. Through the juxtaposition of the physical and metaphoric values ancient cultures have placed on the flamingo, and subtle word choice, Price is able to reveal to us her analysis of American culture. Very subtly she lets us understand that thinks the American society is materialistic, seeking out the artificial values of things in order to make them into commodities. In the first paragraph Price introduces us to the flamboyant time period known as the jazz age. In this time period we can tell that the flamingo is used as a symbol for flashiness and pizzazz through the authors description of hotels being named after the bird. The wealth that is synonymous with the bird is an illusion of what American desires. The authors use of describing the obvious features of the bird also shows how Americans can only see through a superficial curtain unlike the other cultures we come across in the last paragraph. This paragraph gives us a good idea of what the flamingo represented to Americas in this time period which is actually quite different from what we see later in the passage. The next paragraph goes on to describe the irony of using the infamous bird as a symbol when it was hunted and used just years prior. The author juxtaposes killing of the flamingo to the use of its plumes and meat to show how greedy Americans are. They used the physicality of the flamingo to satisfy their materialist needs for wealth. While other cultures, as seen in the later paragraphs, seem to have reverence for the bird. It is

clear from the authors use of diction while describing how Las Vegas hotel The Flamingo Hotel that she thinks of Americans as people looking to the bird as revenue. The bird started popping up in lawns to reveal prosperity. It represented instant riches that from the authors use of diction; one can tell is unreal and worthless. Price also uses the example of Bugsy the gangster and his hotel to describe how the use of the flamingo was cropping up like a line of semiotic sprouts. This phrase in itself is a contradiction because it shows how these lines of superficial places were coming about quickly with no real meaning behind them.