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.
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.....
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