Flamingo Case

Sarcasm pervades Price's austere style and concise rhetorical devices such as compare and contrast, repetition, and simile. Several usages of boldness and the listing of pink colors capture the essence of the flamingo as well as Americans' treatment of it (line 34). She described the rapid appearance of motels and restaurants as "a line of semiotic sprouts," and the absurd word semiotic sprout conveys strong impression of transience, and disarray. In the fourth paragraph, examples of other cultures' views on flamingo immediately show the difference in treatments towards the flamingo. Instead of regarding the beautiful bird as important and things that need to be cared for, Americans exhibited greedy behaviors by hunting and making the Flamingo as their main commodity. Whimsical allusion such as Elvis's pink Cadillac indicates the society's general trend of following transient flashy icons since Elvis is one of the most popular icons in America which people recognize.

While describing how Santa Ana makes humans more mechanistic; narrative, humorous, and an expository tone dominate the passage. The anaphora, "some" (line 2) in the beginning of the passage, creates pause and emphasizes the moody silence before the Santa Ana's landfall. Imagery often helps to present whimsical tone of the writing. The words describing incidents during the Santa Ana (line 5-6) such as "blowing up" "drying the hills," "nerves to the flash point," and "ominously glossy" (line 20) are few imagery devices in the passage. While subtly emphasizing Santa Ana's negative effects, the allusion of Raymond Chandler's narration about Santa Ana (line 30-33) corroborated intriguing narrative writing. Anecdotes such as Didion's argument with the telephone company (line 12) and expository writing in column 2 pervade the motif that Santa Ana caused mechanistic behavior of human. Also, the breathtaking anxiety was elicited by the brevity of the sentences throughout the first and second paragraph.