Master Character Analysis in All the Flowers Kneeling

Overview

Master is a recurring figure in Paul Tran’s poetry collection All the Flowers Kneeling. He appears across several poems titled “Scientific Method,” representing the violent intersection of scientific inquiry, imperial domination, and intergenerational trauma. Through the voices of a dissected corpse, a laboratory rhesus macaque, and a Mimosa pudica plant, Master embodies the objectifying gaze that reduces living beings to specimens. His presence interrogates the myth of scientific objectivity and reveals how structures of power are passed down through generations.

Plot Role and Appearances

Master does not have a continuous narrative arc. He appears as a memory, a specter, or a historical figure whose actions the speaker revisits:

Chapter 4 – Scientific Method: A corpse speaks from beyond the grave. Master unearthed her body, dissected her in a university classroom, and bound her skin into an anatomy book. He paraded her before students, treating her body as an object of empirical study.
Chapter 14 – Scientific Method: A rhesus macaque narrates being separated from its mother at birth. Master placed it in a laboratory experiment with a terry-cloth surrogate. The macaque endures by observing Master, inverting the power dynamic.
Chapter 23 – Scientific Method: A Mimosa pudica plant recalls being kept in a crypt by a scientist in 1729. Master denied it light and care while giving affection to other houseplants. The experiment made Master famous.

In each case, the speaker or victim eventually gains a voice that critiques Master’s actions, transforming him from observer to observed.

Motivations and Traits Through Actions

Master’s actions reveal a relentless drive for knowledge that justifies cruelty. He treats his subjects as mindless, speaking about them rather than to them. The plant notes that Master “spoke not to but about me, / as though I lacked a mind, an appeal / for fellowship or feeling.” This dehumanization (and de-plant-ization) is central to his character.

Master’s selectivity is telling: he lavishes sunlight and affection on other houseplants while confining the Mimosa to a crypt. This calculated withholding suggests a desire to control and dominate. Similarly, in the laboratory, he separates infant monkeys from their mothers to study attachment, but the speaker sees through his facade. The macaque understands that “Master” is the real animal, now belonging to the speaker.

Traits shown include:

Obsessive control: He monitors subjects like “two moons monitoring a realm.”
Cruelty disguised as science: His methods are violent, yet he presents them as objective inquiry.
Ego and fame-seeking: The plant made him famous; his name is “written down in history.”
Inherited violence: The plant imagines revealing that Master’s cruelty was done to him in turn, making him a link in a chain of abuse.

Chronological Arc

Though the poems are not linear, Master’s appearances span centuries. Chapter 23 places him in 1729, referencing historical experiments on heliotropism. Chapter 4 could be contemporary, set in a university anatomy class. Chapter 14 alludes to mid‑20th‑century attachment experiments (like Harry Harlow’s). This temporal breadth suggests that the imperial scientific gaze is not a single event but a persistent, repeatable pattern.

The speaker’s journey is one of gradually gaining clarity. In the early poems, the victims describe their suffering; by later poems like chapter 23, the speaker wishes to “punish him with clarity.” The arc moves from silence to critique, from being observed to observing the observer.

Relationships

Master’s primary relationship is with the speaker, who appears in different forms (corpse, macaque, plant). In each, the speaker is initially powerless but eventually finds a voice. The relationship is not reciprocal: Master imposes his will, but the speaker internalizes and survives his violence.

The collection also suggests a link between Master and other figures of oppression. In chapter 1, a different figure with a necklace of fingers chases the speaker, representing an external command to sacrifice oneself. Master can be seen as a scientific incarnation of that same command. The father figure in chapters 13 and 17 also shares traits of exactingness and control, reinforcing the theme of inherited behavior.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Master’s decision to treat subjects as objects has two major consequences:

Fame and historical legacy: He becomes famous, but his cruelty is exposed by the victims’ testimonies. The plant notes “I made him famous. His name written down in history.” The poems rewrite that legacy by giving voice to the silenced.
Perpetuation of trauma: Master’s cruelty is revealed as inherited – “What Master did to me / he did to himself because it was done to him.” This unmasks the cycle of abuse that undergirds scientific and imperial structures. The speaker’s survival and recounting become a form of resistance that breaks the silence.

The macaque’s decision to endure rather than collapse shows that survival itself is a form of defiance. The speaker refuses to become a passive specimen.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Master is central to several major themes of the collection:

Imperialism and critique of science: His methods are exposed as imperial acts. The corpse imagines telling students that their gaze is “not pure or empirical but imperial.” Master symbolizes how science can be a tool of domination rather than enlightenment.
Intergenerational trauma: The poem in chapter 23 explicitly links Master’s cruelty to what was done to him. This mirrors the speaker’s own relationship to family trauma, explored in chapters on the father and grandmother.
Storytelling as survival: The victims’ narratives – the corpse’s catalog of body parts, the macaque’s inversion of power, the plant’s wish to return – all reclaim agency. They become storytellers in the Scheherazade tradition, using narrative to outlast the oppressor.
Identity and transformation: The speaker transforms from victim to witness. Master’s fixed identity as “scientist” is destabilized; he becomes the specimen under scrutiny.

Key Questions and Answers

What does Master do with the corpse in the first “Scientific Method” poem?
He dissects her in a university classroom, binds her skin into an anatomy book, and parades her before students, treating her body as empirical evidence.
How does Master treat the rhesus macaque in the second “Scientific Method” poem?
He separates the infant from its mother at birth and gives it a terry‑cloth surrogate in a laboratory experiment. The macaque chooses the soft surrogate even though it cannot provide milk.
What experiment does Master perform on the Mimosa pudica in the third “Scientific Method” poem?
In 1729, Master keeps the plant in a dark crypt with minimal water, denying it sunlight and care while observing its heliotropic movements. He speaks about it as though it lacks a mind.
How does the macaque invert the power dynamic with Master?
The macaque realizes that Master is the real animal, now belonging to the speaker. In enduring without collapsing, the macaque becomes the observer, not the observed.
What does the plant wish to do to Master in chapter 23?
The plant wishes to return and punish Master with clarity – specifically, to reveal that his cruelty was inherited from his own abusers, thus exposing the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Conclusion

Master is not a conventional character but a symbolic embodiment of systemic violence. Tran crafts him through multiple perspectives, each exposing the lie of objective science. By giving voice to the silenced subjects – corpse, monkey, plant – the poems reveal how trauma is passed down and how survival becomes an act of testimony. Master’s legacy is rewritten: no longer the discoverer but the discovered, caught in the same web of inherited pain that he inflicted on others. For deeper exploration, see our analyses of intergenerational trauma, sexual violence and survival, and imperialism and critique of science.