A Work Of Artifice

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1970

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form, Meter, and Rhyme

Consisting of 24 lines arranged in a single stanza, the poem is unrhymed and unmetered: It follows no rhyme scheme nor formal metrical arrangement. The 24 lines of the poem are short; none of them contain more than six words. Often the lines appear jagged and broken, as if imitating the whittling of the bonsai tree. The shortness of the lines provides urgency and impact to the poem, telling the reader the poet’s message needs to be urgently delivered. The poem can be described as an allegory, since its elements all have deeper, subtextual meaning. It may also be classified as a narrative poem since it tells the story of the bonsai tree. The poem’s diction is straightforward without being casual, and its accessible vocabulary borrows terms from gardening.

Though the poem does not use many aural literary devices such as alliteration and assonance, its short lines give it a singsong feeling and internal rhythm: “Every day as he / whittles back the branches / the gardener croons, / It is your nature / to be small and cozy, / domestic and weak; / how lucky, little tree, / to have a pot to grow in (Lines 9-16). Note how “cozy” and “tree” rhyme, and how similar “croons” sounds to “grow in.” Although these rhyming pairs are separated by many lines, the effect of the rhyme is still prominent because the lines are short. Here, the reader can also spot instances of repetitive pattern, such as in the phrases “small and cozy” (Line 13) and “domestic and weak” (Line 14).

Extended Metaphor and Apostrophe

The metaphor of the bonsai tree continues throughout the poem, making it an extended metaphor. Other symbolic and metaphorical elements deepen the metaphor, such as the pot and the gardener. Since the bonsai tree is symbolic of women, its whittling and pruning are metaphors for brainwashing and intentional confinement. The gardener is a metaphor for oppressive patriarchal forces, while the cozy, attractive pot is a metaphor for deceptively safe domesticity. These elements are metaphorical because the comparisons they imply are implicit rather than explicit.

The poem also contains an apostrophe: an address to a personified object. This happens in Lines 12-16 when the gardener directly addresses the bonsai tree. The gardener tells the tree that it is “your nature” (Line 12) to be tiny and weak, and therefore it is lucky it has a safe pot in which to grow. The apostrophe highlights the insidious nature of the gardener’s work, seemingly caring for the tree, it is also indoctrinating it about its limitations.

Imagery

The poem uses contrasting imagery: the tall tree split by a lightning bolt on a wild mountainside and a gardener watering a small bonsai tree. Through using terms from gardening, as well as strategic adjectives, the imagery around the potted tree evokes claustrophobia, helplessness, and confinement. The gardener “carefully prunes” (Line 7) and “whittles back” (Line 10) the tree’s branches; both “prunes” and “whittles” evoke slow, systematic destruction. The pruning and whittling are somehow worse than the grand imagery evoked by the tree “split by lightning” (Line 5). Adjectives like “small and cozy” and “domestic and weak” (Lines 12-13) build the imagery of the ornamental bonsai tree as a stunted, helpless thing requiring the containment of a pot.

This imagery is reinforced with phrases associated with traditional beauty standards, such as “bound feet” (Line 20) and “hair in curlers” (Line 22). The phrases immediately evoke images of the violence and artifice inherent in beauty standards, such as the cruel practice of binding feet to keep them strong. Even curling and straightening hair by artificial means involves pain and damage to the hair. The “hands / you love to touch” (Lines 23-24) is another sinister image, since the line addresses to men and patriarchy. The hands are not kept soft because women desire them as such, but because men love to touch soft hands. Thus, the image of the soft hands paradoxically evokes the idea of emotional and spiritual violence against women.