Identity

“Identity” uses an extended botanical metaphor to compare two different ways to live one’s life. The “flowers” and the “weeds” stand in as the vehicles of the metaphor and characterize the types of lives people can live. The “flowers” represent a coddled, comfortable life where people live out a uniform existence in conformity to societal norms. The “weeds,” on the other hand, represent a freer, more challenging existence, characterized by individuality and unconventionality.

The characterization of flowers as comfortable and dependent begins from the first stanza, when the speaker describes the flowers as “always watered, fed, guarded, admired” (Line 2). In this line, the flowers are treated well, and even “admired,” but are ultimately dependent on a caretaker. The poem’s grammatical structure emphasizes this dependence by making the flowers passive objects that do not water or fed themselves. Instead, they are “watered, fed” by some unnamed subject, which is likely a stand-in for larger society (Line 2). The flowers are also dependent on each other, and they grow “in clusters in the fertile valley” (Line 16). The flowers’ dependence is first solidified in Line 3, where the speaker describes them as being “harnessed to a pot of dirt.