Imperialism and the Critique of Science in All the Flowers Kneeling
Thematic Claim
In All the Flowers Kneeling, Paul Tran mounts a sustained critique of the scientific method as an instrument of imperial and patriarchal domination. The poems argue that observation, classification, and experimentation—the pillars of modern science—have historically been wielded to dehumanize colonized and gendered bodies, reducing them to objects of study rather than subjects of their own experience. Tran exposes the myth of scientific objectivity by showing how the Master figure, a colonial scientist, uses empirical inquiry to enact violence while claiming neutrality. The speaker, positioned as the colonized subject, resists by reclaiming knowledge, revealing that science is never pure—only imperial, impure, approximate.
The evidence across multiple poems demonstrates that the scientific method is not a detached pursuit of truth but a performance of power. Through the recurring figure of Master—a composite of European anatomists, animal behaviorists, and colonial botanists—Tran traces how the drive to know becomes a drive to control. The speaker's testimony in the "Scientific Method" poems (chapters 4, 14, and 23) parallels the historical exploitation of Vietnamese bodies, rhesus macaques, and female subjects under the guise of research. Yet the speaker also complicates this critique by showing how they survive and even invert the power dynamic, using the Master's own tools against him.
The Laboratory as Colonial Space: Dissection and Domination
Three "Scientific Method" poems (chapters 4, 14, and 23) form the backbone of Tran's indictment of imperial science. In chapter 4, Master dissects the speaker's corpse, having her skin bound into a book of anatomy. The poem directly references De humani corporis fabrica, the Renaissance anatomical atlas, but repositions the dissected body as a conscious witness. The speaker says, "As Master opened me—groin hard / against my hips, hands in my guts—I opened him." This reversal reveals that the scientific gaze is not absolute or pure; it is "imperial, impure, approximate." The classroom becomes a "surgical circus," and the pupils who "ooh and aah" are complicit in the spectacle. By naming the organs in Vietnamese (Labia, Atria), Tran insists that the observed body retains its own language and history, refusing to be merely raw material for Western knowledge.
Chapter 14 shifts to the primate research laboratory. Master breeds a colony of rhesus macaques, separating infants from their mothers and offering wire surrogates—the classic Harlow experiments. But here the metaphor extends to colonial history: Master "weaned / their whiteness / from our chromosomes, slashed and burned / our home, what they once called / the Orient. French Indochina. Việt Nam." The scientific experiment is directly linked to the imperial project of erasing culture and land. Yet the speaker—speaking as the monkey—outsmarts Master. They describe clinging to the terry cloth surrogate not out of instinct but as an act of autonomous choice, claiming, "I gathered more about Master / than he did about me." The final lines deliver a devastating reversal: "All this time / he was the animal. All this time he belonged to me."
Chapter 23 introduces a botanical experiment. Master observes a Mimosa pudica—the sensitive plant that closes its leaves when touched. He believes it demonstrates "heliotropic devotion" to a sovereign, yet the speaker (again speaking as the plant) resents this interpretation. The poem connects the plant's forced submission to the speaker's own life: "I'd go back to 1729, / take for shelter the awful crypt Master kept me in." Master's science is a "problem of imagination"—he can only see what his colonial mindset permits. The speaker warns, "Beware of me. I who survived / his experimentation," and concludes that Master's violence is recursive: "What Master did to me / he did to himself because it was done to him." This insight acknowledges that the oppressor is also trapped in a cycle of harm, complicating any simple good-versus-evil reading.
The Blade in the Mind: Orchard of Knowing and Unknowing
The opening poem, "Orchard of Knowing" (chapter 1), establishes the central metaphor of the collection. The speaker enters a shadowy orchard and meets a figure wearing a necklace of 999 index fingers, who chases them with a sword. The speaker offers to surrender if the figure "detach from your received idea of purpose." When the figure sets down the sword, the speaker clarifies: "I didn't mean the blade in your hand. / I meant the blade in your mind."
This allegory directly parallels the critique of science. The "received idea of purpose" is the colonial-scientific worldview that demands classification, collection, and sacrifice. The figure's mission—to bring a thousand human sacrifices to a king—mirrors the imperial scientist's mission to accumulate specimens and data. Yet the weapon is not external force but internal ideology. The orchard itself recurs in chapter 29, "Orchard of Unknowing," where the speaker runs naked except for a snakeskin coat and becomes the wind. The flowers speak, collapsing time: "things have happened. Are happening. Are about to." This nonlinear wisdom opposes the linear, progressive model of scientific knowledge. The speaker's transformation from the orchard of knowing to the orchard of unknowing represents a move away from empirical certainty toward an acceptance of mystery and continuity.
Character and Symbol Connections
The Master is not a single historical figure but a composite of colonial scientists—Andreas Vesalius, Harry Harlow, and Vietnamese colonial botanists. He represents the patriarchal, imperial impulse to dissect, classify, and claim ownership over bodies and lands. The speaker functions as both the colonized subject and the defiant witness. They speak as the dissected corpse, the lab monkey, the sensitive plant, and the poet writing from a bare room. This multiplicity refuses the single identity that science tries to impose. The mother appears in the turned-away photograph in chapter 3, a symbol of severed lineage. The Name is the unnamed assailant in the "Incident Report" poem (chapter 2), whose violence is also linked to scientific documentation: the bureaucratic form that fails to capture trauma.
The necklace of 999 index fingers in "Orchard of Knowing" symbolizes the accumulation of knowledge as a collection of trophies. Each finger points at the speaker, reducing them to a unit in a deadly count. This symbol recurs in chapter 18, "Incantation," where the speaker writes the Name on paper, folds it, and performs a ritual to bury him. The poem ends with "Nothing blooms / where I keep you," suggesting that the imperial knowledge system leaves only barrenness. The speaker's act of burying ash becomes an alternative form of knowing—not scientific but incantatory, relational, and grounded in personal power.
Complexity and Contradiction within the Critique
Tran does not simply reject science; they reappropriate its language to describe survival. In "Hypothesis" (chapter 7), the speaker asks "whether it's true / that the moth mistakes the candle's flame / for the moon." They identify as both candle and flame, consuming themselves. The poem ends with "Nothing answered. / Nothing spoke / my language of smoke." Here the scientific method fails to provide meaning, yet the speaker still uses its vocabulary to frame their experience. In "Bioluminescence" (chapter 6), the speaker describes deep-sea creatures that generate their own light. This "fact of adaptation" becomes a metaphor for self-illumination under extreme conditions. The speaker says, "We were wild. Bewildered. Beautiful in our wilderness and wildness." Rather than reject science entirely, they claim its metaphors to describe their own resilience.
The "Copernicus" poem (chapter 28) further complicates the critique. The speaker once believed they were the center of their universe—a geocentric self. Now they understand that "what I perceived as heaven's motion / was actually the earth's motion." This Copernican revolution is personal: "I was a man's failed imagination." The speaker does not abandon the scientific analogy but uses it to describe a shift from self-centered faith to humility. The poem suggests that critique of science can coexist with scientific metaphors when they serve liberation. Tran thus deconstructs the colonial scientific method while maintaining the possibility of other ways of knowing—personal, embodied, cyclical, and grounded in love.
Study Questions and Answers
1. In chapter 4 ("Scientific Method"), the speaker says the pupils' gaze is "not empirical. Only imperial." Explain how this line encapsulates the book's critique of science.
Answer: The pun on "empirical" versus "imperial" reveals that what passes for objective observation is actually a form of colonial domination. The pupils who dissect the speaker's body are not seeking knowledge neutrally; they are participating in a spectacle that reinforces the Master's power. Tran argues that the scientific method, when applied to colonized bodies, becomes a tool of empire rather than a search for truth.
2. How does the symbol of the 999 index fingers in "Orchard of Knowing" relate to the critique of scientific classification?
Answer: The necklace of index fingers represents the accumulation of specimens for a king—a mission of collecting human sacrifices. This mirrors how colonial scientists collected indigenous bodies, plants, and animals for study, treating them as trophies. Each finger points at the speaker, reducing them to a countable object. The figure's purpose is "received," not chosen, echoing how scientific categories are imposed rather than discovered.
3. In chapter 14, the speaker (as a rhesus macaque) declares "All this time / he was the animal. All this time he belonged to me." What does this reversal suggest about the power dynamics of scientific observation?
Answer: The reversal inverts the colonizer-colonized relationship. The speaker claims that while Master believed he was studying an inferior creature, he himself was more primitive and emotionally dependent. The speaker's survival and emotional intelligence give them a deeper understanding of Master than Master has of them. This suggests that the observer is always implicated in the observed, and that the colonized subject can reclaim agency through intimate knowledge of the oppressor.
4. The "Incantation" poem (chapter 18) describes a ritual to banish the Name. How does this alternative form of knowledge challenge the scientific method promoted by Master?
Answer: The incantation uses writing, folding, blood, and fire—a private, embodied ritual that contrasts with the public, documented experiments of Master. The speaker does not seek to generalize or publish findings; they seek personal release. Yet the poem ends with "Nothing blooms / where I keep you. / Except me, / you still kill / everything," suggesting that the ritual has not fully worked. This ambiguity acknowledges that trauma resists neat resolution, unlike the clean conclusions science demands.
5. How does the "Orchard of Unknowing" (chapter 29) offer an alternative to the "Orchard of Knowing" (chapter 1) in terms of epistemology?
Answer: The first orchard is a space of threat, classification, and the "blade in the mind"—the violent desire to know through conquest. The second orchard is a space of unknowing, where the speaker runs naked (vulnerable) and becomes the wind. The flowers speak of nonlinear time: "things have happened. Are happening. Are about to." This cyclical, embodied wisdom rejects the linear, progressive model of scientific discovery. It suggests that healing comes from surrendering the need to know and control, and instead accepting the interdependence of all things.