Title

The title of the poem makes use of understatement in the same way as the poem. By titling the poem "Incident in a Rose Garden" instead of, for example, "Death Visits the Master," Justice creates a sense of mystery, of suspense. Readers are never told directly the significance of what is happening but must make the connections themselves. Setting the poem in a rose garden underscores the relationships among death, nature, and human beings and shows the folly of human beings in thinking that they are somehow not a part of the natural world, which includes death.

Gardener

In the first stanza of "Incident in a Rose Garden," the Gardener addresses his Master, telling him that he "encountered Death" in the garden. The Gardener recognized him "through his pictures," meaning the stereotypical ways that death has been personified in painting and illustrations: all in black and "thin...