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The theme of the poem is the suppression of the full potential of women in society as a result of cultural restrictions and gender biases.
The poem is free verse and has no specific rhyme scheme, an ironic feature of them poem because of the way it contrasts with the lack of free nature of women in society as depicted by Pierce. The structure is also significant. By using short and simple lines, the poet emphasizes the confinement of both the bonsai tree and women.
The poet uses a number of gardening related diction and imagery to contribute to the extended metaphor of the bonsai tree.
In lines 12-16, the poet makes use of an apostrophe as the gardener addresses both women and the tree. By doing so, Pierce emphasizes the way that society directly prevents women from reaching their full potential.
The speaker expresses that the bonsai tree "could have grown eighty feet tall / on the side of a mountain / till split by lightning" (3-5) if a gardener had not carefully "pruned it" (7) and kept its growth to "nine inches high" (8). Pierce uses this to express that women have a vast potential to grow and accomplish things, but fail to do so as a result of the manipulation of the gardener that is society's cultural restrictions. By "whitt[ling] back the branches" (10) of the bonsai tree, the gardener prevents the tree from reaching its full growth and symbolically expresses the opportunities kept from women in society and the suppression of reaching their full capabilities. The gardener speaks to the tree, assuring that it is its "nature / to be small, and cozy, / domestic and weak" (12-14) and that if anything it is "lucky" to have the pot that it grows in. Through this, Pierce represents the way that society conditions women to have a predisposed notion that it is inevitable for them to ever be anything more than their stereotype and that they should be happy with this lifestyle and seek no more.
In the same way that a gardener "must begin very early / to dwarf [a tree's] growth" (18-19), Pierce implies that society conditions women from their birth to believe in their inferiority.
In her poem, Marge Piercy uses the extended metaphor of a bonsai tree in order to represent the suppression and cultural restrictions placed on women by society. Through the use of her poetic devices, Piercy uses a gardener controlling the growth of a tree so that it may not grow to its full height and beauty to symbolize the way that society prevents women from reaching their full potential as human beings.
Though there is no specific speaker, the poem is written in third person up until the last two lines, where it shifts to second person. At this point, you can assume that the speaker is a woman attempting to convey the struggles of females in society.