Let's mix this up a bit. Here is a poem by Marge Percy titled A Work of Artifice. Read it. Ask who is the speaker. Look at word choice, identify the tone. Are there allusions? Images? Any figurative language?
Now let's "scan" it. Scansion is when you look a lines of verse to identify rhythm. So, look at each line and identify the number of syllables per line. Does this tell you anything?
What is the setting or situation? IS there any irony? Does anything symbolize something else?
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
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.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
by Marge Piercy
How does the central message of this poem relate to The Handmaid's Tale?
Now let's "scan" it. Scansion is when you look a lines of verse to identify rhythm. So, look at each line and identify the number of syllables per line. Does this tell you anything?
What is the setting or situation? IS there any irony? Does anything symbolize something else?
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
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.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
by Marge Piercy
How does the central message of this poem relate to The Handmaid's Tale?
The speaker seems to be a third person, neither the gardener or the plant. It is someone on the outside of those two, referencing them. This story talks about a plant being tamed by a gardener and not allowed to grow to its fullest potential. The speaker views this as a lucky situation. They feel that the plant is in a good potion to be maintained and bound to its attractive pot. However, I feel this is ironic. In the Handmaid's Tale, Offred does not want to be restrained or kept by the powers that be. She wants to be free and have her old life back with Luke and her daughter, rather than be in this rigid schedule, controlled by those around her. Her personal growth is inhibited just as the plants is by the gardener. It is interesting to me that the author finds it lucky to have your growth maintained and restricted while Offred wants nothing more than to break the ties she has with the life as a Handmaid.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think, like a bonsai, that is kept small, this poem is about women being kept small. The feet binding is pretty clearly a reference to Chinese foot binding which basically left women helpless and unable to run away from abuse. The Handmaids are also trapped.
DeleteI am not positive as to who the speaker is, but it is not the gardener, it is someone outside of the scene. In the poem, the tree was once able to grow. It would have reached 80 feet, but the gardner decided it would be better off in a pot. The pot, referring to a space where he can control how much it grows, what it does and how it reacts to the environment, is like Offred’s own home in “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The Commanders believe that they are doing the women a service, making their lives better by keeping them secluded from the horrors of the world. The men in the book control the lives of the women and deprive them from the ability to grow as humans and individuals like the gardner is stopping the growth of the tree. The speaker of the poem says “how lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in”. The speaker thinks this is a perfectly fine way of living and that the tree is lucky to have someone to control the way it grows. The men in the book think the same way. When the Commander and Offred are talking, he tells her that the men are helping the women to fulfill their biological role in the world. The words “domestic” and “weak” are used strategically in the poem which connects to the weakness of the women in “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The speaker says that it is the job of women to live simply and modestly and not have the ability to grow to their potential. The Handmaid’s are trained to be domestic and powerless. The title of the poem “A Work of Artifice” is ironic because it uses the word artifice which means to deceive people. Instead of using the title “A Work of Art”, which you would think would be used if something beautiful is being created, the author could be referring to the idea that the gardner controlling the growth of the tree is a work of deception. Both the gardner and the men in the novel are deceiving the weak women and tree to believe that they are trying to help them. The end of the poem refers to “the bound feet” which is an allusion to what the Chinese used to do to women’s feet. To make them look prettier, more feminine and more attractive, their feet would be bound with ribbon to stop them from growing. The men would do this, just as the gardner, a man would deprive the tree the ability to grow to its greatest potential. The Chinese women were never able to continue growing because the men decided to change their form and appearance. There are very few syllables per line. It is simple, also like Atwood’s writing, but it has a deeper meaning. The short sentences and words may be a representation of how the men talk to the women. They talk simply as if the women cannot understand anything.
ReplyDeleteOlivia, you touch on a really interesting line - and a topic we will be discussing in class p- that is tone and irony. Tone - How lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in. The words lucky and little create the tone of patronizing - making the line sarcastic, or ironic, right? You caught onto that by the end of your comment. AWESOME!!!!
DeleteThe speaker of this poem is not the gardner, instead an outside figure. Possibly someone looking at the plant from outside the garden. The tone seems to be soft, sad, almost patronizing, but more of talking down to it. The poem starts by talking about the plant, saying it could have been 80 feet tall, or it could have been on the side of a mountain. Then however, the speaker starts to talk down to the tree, saying it it is lucky to have grown in a pot, and to be cared for by a farmer. Words like lucky, little, and lines 17-20 show this tone of the plant being lesser. The setting seems to be in a garden, on an average day. Just the speaker looking at the plant and thinking out loud about it. The poem definitely relates to the handmaid's tale, especially in the last 8 lines. The tree is a symbol for the handmaid's. They have to be bound, or taken from their previous live. They have to be forced into the new society, and learn the ways of the handmaids. It is ironic because the speaker claims the tree is lucky to have the farmer, but Offred hates the aunts and the government that controls her.
ReplyDeleteExcellent work, Matt.
DeleteThe speaker of the poem is someone watching the gardener work because he references the gardener groom the plant and how he watches him do it every day. I am not positive what the setting is but I am picturing like a house with dark wood floors and a little table with a nine inch bonsai tree. I think it is ironic how the gardener is described when working with the bonsai tree, whittling the branches sounds like he is outside, doing intense work but in reality he is probably using scissors to trim the tree. I feel like this tree may symbolize a person who is unable to use their voice, maybe a child, or someone who cannot understand the situation. I feel in a way that the bonsai tree could parallel the handmaids. The poem says how the tree could have been 80 feet tall and live until nature wanted to to, but instead it is nine inches in a pot. The handmaids could have went on to do successful things but they were taken and chosen to fulfill this role. They are now “domestic and weak” and have no voice, much like a tree cannot tell us not to cut it down. The speaker is kind of like one of the aunts who tells them how lucky they are to be a handmaid but in fact being a handmaid is the worst. The moral of the story is that we need to save the rainforests.
ReplyDeleteKAIT
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ReplyDeleteThe speaker seems to be somebody that is observing the tree being cared for. If it were the gardener, then the gardener would not be directly mentioned. It’s seems as the tone is calm and If someone were to be reading the poem aloud, I would
ReplyDeleteImagine that they have a soft voice on the verge of a whisper. The speaker mentions how the tree is in a pot, it is not in the wild. It could be in the wild though and, if it were, it would be much taller. However, if it was in the wild, on the side of a mountain, it could possibly be struck by lightning at any moment as well. The speaker then mentions how the tree is lucky. It is lucky because it has care. It has the love of a gardener everyday. This poem could be related to the handmaids tale due to the concept of being bound. The tree is bound in the pot like the handmaids are to their town. If they both were to leave, they would be able to grow. The tree would be taller and Offred would grow to live a life she desires with Luke and her daughter. But they can’t grow because they are bound. Crippled brain could also relate to the handmaids tale because that is what happened to offreds society. Their brains are crippled and desensitized into thinking that the life they are living is Normal and okay.
Awesome, Ariel. I can see that you are thinking much more analytically. I am proud!
DeleteIn this poem, the speaker seems to be an omniscient watcher of these events, so it could very well be an author. Although to me it doesn’t seem like the speaker is really watching a gardener with a tree, but instead using it as analogy for something else entirely. I believe that in a very similar theme to The Handmaid's Tale, it could possible be about men hindering women from their full potential. My immediate thought knowing it had to do with the novel and the first 2 lines was that this poem was about women being oppressed in some way, and by reading further it seems to be supporting my argument further. By calling the tree’s pot attractive was a major tip in the beginning since it seems odd to call a object attractive, which is typically used to describe other human beings. Then as you get towards the middle and the gardener calls the tree domestic and weak almost as if to patronize the tree. Lastly, the last sentence or last 8 lines truly show that the speaker isn’t really talking about a tree but instead using it as a symbol for life in general. But the specifics of “the hair in curlers” leads to believe the speaker is talking about women in general. The last 2 lines of “the hands you love to touch” makes me believe that the poem is talking to a man or men in general, expressing how the speaker feels about their actions in tone of disgust. That also leads me to believe that speaker is female and may be the author.
ReplyDelete- Sofia Lanzi
Yes. The speaker is omniscient.
DeleteIn A Work of Artifice, the tree could have grown to be very tall, but instead is dwarfed by lightning. The tree represents women, particularly Chinese or women- when they are born they have potential to do amazing things, but it is taken away by males in society. They are forced to assume their “role” in society- domestic, weak, fragile, and attractive. They bind their feet, do not use their brains, and curl their hair so that they fit the image of beauty, small and delicate. This is closely connected with The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred, and all women for that matter, are forced to assume their designated roles. The Handmaids are meant to cover themselves in long, heavy cloaks. The only work that the Wives and Marthas are allowed to perform is domestic. They are not allowed to read because they are not meant to be intelligent. This belittlement makes the women seem unimportant in society. By being robbed of intelligence, they are being robbed of the opportunity to participate in society. Both A Work of Artifice and The Handmaid’s Tale deal with unjust limitations placed on women.
ReplyDeleteThe tree is dwarfed by being cut back, constantly, to keep it small, keep it in its pot. You are right about the connection to the Handmaids, and the wonderful and awful image of the binding of feet of the Chinese women. Good job.
DeleteThe speaker of this poem is someone who is observing the tree and seeing how it is being cared for. The gardner cannot be the speaker because he is directly mentioned in the poem. The first few lines of the poem talks about the potential the tree has to grow into something massive. It then goes on to to say that the tree is instead, living in a pot being cared for by a gardner. Piercy states that this plant is lucky to live in a pot. The end of the poem talks about the “bound feet” and this immediately makes me think of the Chinese foot binding custom. This custom was to bind the feet Chinese women, which stunted its growth, leaving the women with a limitation. This directly relates to the Handmaid’s Tale. This is because the handmaids are also being limited by their owner. There are many restrictions on them, and they cannot escape. They are living in a “pot” where their growth is limited and they cannot grow into a strong women or “a tall tree.” Another limitation here is the “crippled brain.” A cripple brain clearly means a lack of knowledge. In the handmaid's care, it refers to their lack of ability to read. Finally, in relation to the lucky aspect, the Aunt’s always see the handmaids as being lucky for their situation. They say that their limited life is the best life they could have gotten.
ReplyDeleteMichael T
You were right to pick up on the foot binding. Great job. You are already thinking more analytically.
DeleteThe speaker of this poem, can not easily be identified but it is evident that it is not the gardner but rather someone on the outside possibly observing. This poem encourages the growth of wildlife in restricted and detained areas. Rather than letting the bonsai tree prosper on its own in the woods where it belongs, the garder places it in a pot and keeps it a certain size and shape its whole life. While the idea of containment is valued and seen as a positive thing in the poem, it is the exact opposite feelings that the handmaid's posses in The Handmaid's Tale. While society believes that it is best to keep women restricted and isolated, the women are obviously opposed to this idea. They want back their freedom. Freedom to grow and branch out like the bonsai tree would have been able to do if it weren’t placed in the pot. The women, as described towards the end of the poem are shaped to be a certain way which is seen with the women in the novel. The tone of this poem gives me the sense of someone having authority. The speaker is telling the plant the criteria it must have, “It is your nature to be small and cozy,domestic and weak;how lucky, little tree,to have a pot to grow in.” I picture this to be said in a snarky tone where one assumes they have power over another which is seen in the Handmaid's tale because the women literally have no say in their lives anymore.
ReplyDelete-Lauren P
I am not sure all women in the novel wish for freedom. Some are soooo brainwashed! You are right to hear the lines as snarky. But smooth, too. Like expected. Good analysis.
DeleteThe speaker of the poem does not appear to be a person. It's a force/omnipresent being that is just observing the relationship between the gardener and his bonsai tree. Bonsai trees are generally associated with Asia and specifically China which makes sense why there's reference to the binding of feet. What I found strange about my first read through of the poem was that even though the insinuated control and maintenance of people, specifically women, is a terrible concept there's nothing in the word choice that indicates this. The narrator is very neutral in their wording with no bias being shown for or against the actions and ideals of the gardener. I believe that this shows the normalization of these terrible actions during these times where controlling women was the social norm. This heavily relates to The Handmaid's Tale because again keeping women under control is once again the social norm. It also shows how not far off The Handmaid's Tale is from real life. The binding of feet and this abusive treatment to Chinese women ended in only 1912. There were still women alive from our own lifetime that had had their feet bound meaning there were recently women who know what it's like to go through their own version of The Handmaid's Tale.
ReplyDeleteAs the gardener is directly mentioned in the poem, I am lead to believe that the speaker in this poem is an outsider, who watched the tree grow. When I read this poem and linked it to the Handmaid's Tale, it became clear that this poem is about far more than a budding tree. The poem speaks of how the tree, if untouched by outside sources, has an almost boundless potential. Yet, it was taken from its natural environment and was instead cut down repeatedly by the gardener I believe that tree is treated the same as Offred is in the novel. If she and her fellow women, had been left in their own environments, they would be allowed to grow and thrive, reaching their full potential. Additionally the poem mentions bound feet and crippled brains. The Chinese used to bind the feet of women so that they would be paralyzed and unable to be on their own. In the novel, the government cripples the minds of women by not allowing for them to read. The women in the novel are represented by the tree in the poem.
ReplyDelete-Emma R
In this poem, the author compares the growth and maintenance of a bonsai tree, to what seems to be, in my opinion, a woman. The speaker is not the gardener, but most likely an onlooker. After reading this poem a few times, it became clear to me than it was about a lot more than the tree. In the beginning, the bonsai tree and the woman had aspirations to achieve, like growing eighty feet tall, or following her dream. This was stopped, or cut short when the bonsai tree was split by lighting, or when someone told the woman she was unable to do what she pleased. When the author writes "It is your nature/to be small and cozy,/domestic and weak" she is also referring to the constant need for men to tell women their places or role in society, typically in a household, taking care of men and children, "domestic." Just like the bonsai tree represents a woman, the gardener embodies society, but specifically men, who inhibit the growth of women. Similar to Emma, I also thought of a story I read in a school reading book that was about how certain Asian cultures practiced the binding of feet, but only on women. This practice stopped the women from literally walking, not allowing them to do what they wanted to do. The control that men need to have, to feel, over women is similar to how people take care of their plants; don't over-water or under-water the plants, don't let the plant grow out of control too much, maintain the plant, maintain your woman.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker of this poem may be a person who is observing the growth of the tree or watching as the Gardner maintains it. This poem showcases the manipulation that men use to curb the growth of women in independence and intelligence. Everything that may be intimidating to a insecure man. You have to start when they are young. Don't even let them believe it is an option to think for themselves. Form girls into a mold that men choose. Bound feet like in Chinese history. Used to make women physically incapable of escaping an abusive marriage. Give them curlers so their beauty matches the standards that men want. Cripple their minds. Restrict them from any information that could let them form personal ideas. Make women grateful for the pot they have been given when in reality they could have grown 80 feet tall. But they don't even know they could have grown 80 feet tall. However, in this poem, the Gardner is not mean or malicious in anyway. He "croons" and appears to actually be very kind. He believes this i acceptable and what is expected of a man to do. As he is bringing this "tree" to believe that it should be small, weak, and domestic, he was probably just as well brought up to garden and cut this small tree down. The cycle is relentless and damaging.
ReplyDeleteMaria C
A Work of Artifice written by Marge Piercy is a commentary on male supremacy and the patriarchy. The title of the poem itself, A Work of Artifice, establishes a sarcastic tone to this commentary, as the word artifice means a clever trick, implying that there is some major point of deception that occurs in this poem. Although the gardener is mentioned in this poem as seemingly someone other than the narrator, I believe that the speaker could still be the gardner, referring to himself in third person. Referring to oneself in the third person suggests a great arrogance, which would further this sarcastic notion that the men are “saving” the women through their cruel, isolating treatment of them. For example, the speaker says that the trees are “lucky,” and saying that it is the tree’s nature to be “small, cozy, domestic, and weak” even though the tree has been forced to exist this way since some of the first moments of its life, when lightning struck it. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the Commander behaves in a similar way when explaining the new society to Offred. He feels proud of helping to establish the new state and believes she should be happy, even though she has been completely deprived of all of her freedoms. I completely agree with Jessica on the allusions made in this poem, as she notes the binding of women’s feet that occurred in parts of China until the 19th century, which was meant as a symbol of beauty and status, even though it permanently restricted women’s movement. I also agree with her commentary on women being deprived of all access to education in The Handmaid’s Tale. The most important tool for creating social change is education and intelligence, and without access to knowledge, society remains unchanged under the weight of ignorance and injustice. Hindering the tree’s growth is symbolic of men acting superciliously, feeling as though they are noble protecting women, when in actuality, they are stealing all of their freedoms. Without access to knowledge or any experiences outside of a man’s control, women are left as small and obstructed as the tiny bonsai tree, just like Offred and the other handmaids.
ReplyDeleteThe poem describes the growth of a bonsai tree in nature as compared to when taken care of by a gardener. The speaker is an outside party who sees and understands the tree from both perspectives. The speaker also describes how the gardener stunts the growth of the tree in order to keep it small and contained in a pot. I believe this is ironic because the gardener believes that the bonsai tree is kept small and cozy, weak but protected; however, because the gardener stunts the growth of the tree to preserve it, the tree is unable to grow to its fullest potential. The gardener’s “protection” is detrimental to the tree’s freedom. In the poem, the speaker says “to dwarf their growth, bound their feet” which makes me think back to Mr. Lee’s sophomore world history class when we learned about the contraptions put on the feet of Chinese babies (female) in order to deform their feet, keeping them domesticated for the rest of their lives starting from birth. This is all connected to the idea written in The Handmaid’s Tale because in Gilead, it is said that women are safer than they have ever been before. They do not have to worry about dangers that they did previous to their dystopian society; however, what they are really doing is caging the women, limiting their freedom. They claim to protect them, yet, like the bonsai tree, they are keeping them weak, stunting them from reaching their fullest potential.
ReplyDelete- Inthavha Singharaj
The speaker of this poem seems to be an outsider, such as a bystander or someone witnesses what the Gardner is doing to the tree. Could this be an authority figure wishing to change something that they are incapable of changing alone? Could this bystander by suffering from something similar? The use of the attractive pot could be to gain the attractive eye if males to a weak and brittle tree. It is stated that the tree has the ability to grow tall in a beautiful setting because it is restricted by the Gardner cutting it. It is said it is the trees nature to be small, cozy and weak referring to woman. Could the pot serve to be a protector, could the woman be abused? Could the woman have a small trust circle? It states that woman must be incapable of being their best or who they are due to society’s and mans expectations causing the woman to fix it with the expectations and not stand out or draw attention to themselves to a negative way- must obey. It shows that woman are being trapped by not being able to be themselves and are forced to a live a life they do not please to and showing the man are superior to them, Just as in the handmaids tale
ReplyDeleteThe narrator is talking about this tree that could have grown to be tall and strong--80 feet tall on the side of the mountain, until shot down, split in half by a strike of lightning. \
ReplyDeleteBut instead, a gardener took it under its wing and carefully pruned it(cut off, neatened, shaped).
It only grew to 9 inches
Every day when the gardener comes to prune the tree, he hums that it’s the tree is meant to be small and weak, cozy and domestic.
The gardener says to the tree that it’s so lucky to have a pot to grow in.
I think that the narrator says, that in order to dwarf the growth of living creatures, you need to start early. You need to cripple their minds, bind their feet,
Hair in curlers, symbolism for making women feel insecure enough to constantly maintain their looks--to be looked at, to have some sort of power.
Hands that love to touch means that the man or the person making the woman feel this small is a pot… can be double meaning for handmaid’s tale
Well, first off, it portrays women as small, fragile beings who need someone to guide them. In the Gardener’s eyes, they require structure. This is done through the Aunts. They are given strict rules to follow, and have very severe consequences if they don’t. The Aunts constantly tell the Handmaids that their main purpose on Earth is to produce offspring. They manipulate the world around them, as well as the Bible. The gardener, similarly to the Aunts, tells the tree that it belongs as a domestic and weak tree, because it’s nature. This is a huge aspect of the novel as well.
The author uses a tree to compare a woman who was supposed to grow up to be strong and tough, but due to the society that the woman is trapped in, she was forced into a meek, fragile child. The fact that the gardener uses the word domestic makes it obvious that it symbolizes a girl and it’s obvious that the gardener looks down at the woman. This is similar to the society in the Handmaid’s Tale because it’s a patriarchal society that uses women as fertility factories, prostitutes, or they just kill them. They cannot amount to anything because they have no means of getting to where they want to be, and even the wives are seen as trash. The only people who are seen as strong and confident are the men.
I also think that it used a tree because trees symbolize mother nature..and it closely resembles a flower that is supposed to bloom, but when pruned too much, it fails to reach its full potential causing it to depend on the gardener...it eventually dies. Similarly to the novel, the spirit of Offred eventually dies.