"It is your nature"

The poem “A Work of Artifice” was a very interesting poem. When I first read it I had an idea of what it was about but I wasn’t entirely sure. After re-reading it a couple of times and the reading the explanation of what the poem was about I felt I understood what the poem is about. Marge Piercy wrote this poem in reference to the oppression of women. Women are represented by the bonsai tree and men are the gardeners.

Reading commentaries and opinions of what others thought about this poem I noticed that majority were very much alike. Women are the bonsai trees and man is the gardener who constantly prunes the tree so that it won’t grow to its full potential. It is man who feels the need to be in control at all times merely giving if any, room for women to explore beyond their reach. Women are captive to the will of men. Men are the ones to blame. It is their fault why women are viewed as domestic and weak.

Others believe that if women are being treated in such manner it is because they choose to be. Women allow themselves to be torn apart by others; they allow themselves to be treated as a lesser human being. Women allow themselves to be used, and many times they place themselves in situations knowing the outcome. Everyone has the ability to choose to be in whatever state of mind and being they find themselves in. Why then do women continually play the role of the victim and claim they have every right of the misconstrued idea that it is man who made them the way they are; men are to blame.

While those two thoughts are most common and yeah, that poem was written a long time ago, I find myself thinking about the lives of those who have unwillingly been taken captive? For example, the child who is unwillingly placed on stage for all to see her beauty as her innocence is being trampled on. The women who are continually told they are useless, believing it is their nature to be domestic and weak. The young man who has been pruned to be nine inches instead of having the opportunity grow eight feet tall because supposedly that’s all he’s capable of achieving. Would the gardener explain that to be their nature as well?