Price Crafts the Text to Reveal Her View of United States Culture Through Her Description and Diction

Uchenna Eze June 13, 2012

Price crafts the text to reveal her view of United States culture through her description and diction.

Furthermore, Price views United States culture as weak and spineless. Generally, the United States is unknown for breeding a specific type of animal or worshipping one as many cultures do such as Indians worship cows or kangaroos are bed in Australia; In the excerpt, Price explains different countries such as Egypt and Mexico which had their own interpretation of the flamingo while still respecting their habitats, whereas Americans almost drove them to extinction for plumes and meat. Through her sarcastic style, and inscribed in the text, Price makes Americans seem like they want to be apart of the rest of world by parading an animal, the flamingo, throughout Florida. American culture is also weak to Price because initially, Americans did not respect the flamingo population. As with African slaves, Americans took the flamingos for granted, nearly destroyed them, then finally accepted them because they added to the growth of their society. American weak culture essentially roots down to their dependency of subordinate specimen in order to satisfy the melting pot envisioned to be America.

Moreover, Price views United States culture to be socially depressed. Around the booming of the pink flamingo was also the time of the Great Depression which could be a possible factor of the sporadic acceptance. Anyway, Prices' descriptive language explained the usage of the flamingo: to entice customers: "…the flamboyant oasis of instant riches that the gangster Benjamin ‘Bugsy' Siegel had conjured from the desert in 1946 with his Flamingo Hotel" (Line 21-4). Because flamingos had such a bright hue, it caught people's attention and lured them into establishments; even Price herself said the flamingos reproduced by manufactures are significantly