Deconstruction Analysis on Design

Deconstruction Analysis on Design

THE POEM

Design by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth—

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth.

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?—

If design govern in a thing so small.

ANALYSIS

The poem’s title carries a bit of ambiguity. As a sonnet, it is a design yet also about design which comes in a natural mini-drama involving a crazy mix of characters – a moth, spider and heal-all. The poem projects the show of a spider holding up a dead moth upon the heal-all, an herbaceous flower.

Centered on the events witnessed by the speaker, the sestet presents serial queries regarding the scene. It is an odd blend of ingredients boiling witches broth in a cauldron. Casually ghastly stemming from the speaker's use of paradoxical images, it is unfolded in understatement, painting an occurrence appearing to be ordinary as it is acted out on infinite occasions. The brutal death of the moth is imparted with appealing imagery while the predacious spider is described as "dimpled...fat and white". "Death and blight" is juxtaposed with the pastiness of the morning. "Dead wings" is directly compared with a "paper kite."

In the poem, the usually blue heal-all becomes an albino like a sort of fantastic modification ha staken place. The "snowdrop (note that it is white) spider," an oxymoronic figure, is at an uncommon height. And, of course, the "characters of death and blight" are all white. With all stuffs appearing downright abnormal, the scene is odd; whiteness was emphasized.

Pondering on the keenly observed scene, the speaker shifts from description to reflection in the sestet, perhaps seeking for some purpose to the eccentricities he has abruptly witnessed. All the questions in lines nine to twelve was sufficed with another question for an answer: "What but design of darkness to appall?" Since so much whiteness could not be accidental, it is maybe a suggestion that some creepy plan of nature has caused these seemingly random events. The poem ends with an "If" statement to qualify the answer given with a reservation previously. The last line seems initially to offer a glimmer of hope by negating the speaker's own suggestion.

This terminal utterance introduces a chilling note of doubt: that the seemingly insignificant events of nature simply play themselves out in a random fashion. Either conclusion drawn by the speaker - either that these encounters are random or that they are by design – is terrifying. But in reality, this alternative explanation is no less morbid, for it dismisses the previous notion of a predetermined fate for the possibility that is even more horrifying: that such minute scenes in nature are simply played out at random. More broadly, the suggestion may be that all life forms (human included) are connected and yet involved in a pattern of preying upon each other; another frightening suggestion.

The design of the poem is an Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet. The rhyme scheme is abba abba aca acc. The limited number of rhymes (3) focuses on the color white – the dominant rhyme-word of the poem. This focus on whiteness accentuates the appearance of innocence and the ostensibly benign nature of the exhibition before the speaker. The rhyme scheme helps create an awful, silent whiteness.

Does design really govern in very small things, such as his own creation - a sonnet? The speaker may be asking such question of design about his own poem. And it’s a yes as manifested in the tight structure of the intricately designed piece.