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This poem, I think was written about Chinese women. The bonsai tree was used as a metaphor to how Chinese women are pruned right from birth to become something that their people want them to be, they can never truly be themselves unless they do so in private. Clues that this poem was about Chinese women was the line where they talk about binding feet. The Chinese culture is the only culture that I know of that does that to their women. From wat I know they don’t do that any more. The ancient tradition was that small petite feet are beautiful. So the Chinese would start from child hood and bind their children’s feet. This is a very painful process and it is very disfiguring. It reminds me of western and European women wearing corsets. It also could deform and break ribs if worn tight enough. Today people don’t usually use restraining clothing, but that image to be thin is still very popular.
I can also connect this to the book we just read in AP … the Awakening. In that book Edna was also bound by society’s view on what a perfect woman should be. Also in this book she breaks away and becomes an independent woman. She becomes the opposite of what society wants her to be and loves it. Her true inner person shines. There are downfalls to this, she totally disrupts her home like. She abandons her husband children and household, and becomes very selfish. It’s sad in a way that she became so into herself. It’s too bad that there cannot be a fine balance between society and women’s rights.
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