The Plastic Flamingo A Natural History Summary

Malcolm Muggeridge, a British journalist, once commented to “Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” What the journalist learned was that it is significant to have individualism instead of following the stream. In Jennifer Price’s essay, “The Plastic Flamingo: A Natural History,” Price gives a history about flamingo to emphasize the fact that Americans lack individualism. Price analyzes American culture and American mindset through flamingo by utilizing great diction, sarcastic tone, and examples to build up on her insight. Price begins her essay with excitement. She uses verbs and adjectives in order to create more sense of excitement as a sarcasm. She writes, “When the pink flamingo splashed into the fifties market, it staked two major claims to boldness” (Lines 1-2). By using both “splashed” and “boldness” in the sentence,

Price uses sarcasm in her second paragraph to show how she thinks the flamingo trend is stupid. She claims, “This was a little ironic, since Americans had hunted flamingos to extinction in Florida in the late 1800s, for plumes and meat” (Lines 13-15). Through this, Price delineates how flamingos being hunted down was unimportant to Americans when flamingos became popular. Price criticizes the reaction of Americans in the situation of flamingo extinction to situation of flaming trend in order to show two-faced American mindset. Price also utilizes rhetorical question in her essay to further emphasize the importance of color pink. She questions, “Why, after all, call the birds ‘pink flamingos’ - as if they could be blue or green?” (Lines 46-47). Price claims how she thinks it is stupid for Americans to make the plastic birds unnecessarily brighter for pink color, as well as calling the flamingos “pink” since all flamingos are pink anyways. In addition, the birds stand out in the natural environment with its color, so Price claims that she sees no point to make it