A Work of Artifice

"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:". I really liked this poem, I thought it was a great metaphor for women in time periods such as the fifties or before then. Like the bonsai tree a woman could become a great neurosurgeon, a forensic anthropologist, or a writer but in those times periods men or society told them they had to be the housewife and be, "domestic and weak," just like the gardener made the great bonsai tree into something small and weak.
The next line in the poem I felt continued with the metaphor of how women should be, "how lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in. With living creatures one must begin very early to dwarf their growth." Such as in the book we are reading, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', a husband, the provider for his wife felt that she should be grateful and happy that he has provided a place for her to live in. He provided a house and food so why shouldn't his wife be happy? Just like Janie's husband Jody expected her to be happy with the things he provided her and to just grow in her little pot and he would trim and prune her until she was the way he wanted her to be. The second sentence about dwarfing the tree's growth early is how a woman's mother taught her how she was supposed to act and be just like Janie's grandmother did. Girls learned from an early age of how they were supposed to be and how the were not supposed to question it.
"the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers, the hands you love to touch," the bound feet in this part of the poem reminded me of that old Chinese tradition of bounding a girl's feet to make them small because small feet was seen as beautiful which is another example of how women were forced to look and be a certain way. The crippled brain and hair in curlers represents that mentality that beauty not brains or be beautiful not natural because a woman will only be happy and loved if she is beautiful. The very last part I wasn't too sure about. I thought it might still be talking about a woman, and perhaps dancing, when she is dainty and beautiful then men would love to take her out and dance. I also thought it might be representing how a woman was dependant on a man so much, so, "the hands you love to touch," is the woman reaching out and looking for that man that will support her and provide for her.