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.
