Out of Control
- If Gertrude's ambition directed the action before, now it's grown entirely out of control. Feathers don't just emerge gently as if from the wave of a wand. They "pop" out with a "zang!" and a "zing!" They're fit for a queen. They sparkle like gumdrops and gold and silk and spaghetti and…
- Um, spaghetti? Oh Seuss, always pulling our leg. But is this seemingly counterintuitive detail there just to make us laugh? Or is this a reflection on just how ridiculous these outward markers of beauty really are?
- After all, what's so valuable about diamonds and silk and satin and gold other than the fact that people go, "Hey, why do they get to have that sparkly looking thing when I don't?"
- Fact is, everything valuable is just as meaningless as spaghetti except for the fact that we're jealous, vain and ambitious creatures. Such is the way of man. Um, birds.
- Gertrude certainly is buying it, though, sprouting a ridiculous tree of feathers—way more than any one bird could ever need or enjoy—until the sun goes down.
- Can Gertrude now appreciate what she's got? Of course not. All she can think about now is showing these feathers off to Lolla so she falls right down dead in awe.