What “Design” by Robert Frost Depicts About the World
Morgan Campbell
Catherine Cross
ENGL 1000.06 X/Y
March 10th 2015
“Design” is a poem that can support the belief of a higher power controlling what is happening, and can also create an argument to believe things are just a coincidence
Paraphrase
The speaker, who is talking to his audience, and speaking in third person, finds a plump white spider on a flower ready to eat a white moth. The moth is like a rigid satin sheet of cloth, dead, killed by the spider. They are sitting on a white flower, called a heal-all, which is said to have healing powers. The three are surrounded by darkness and wrongdoing. The spider is a murderer, the moth has been …show more content…
They could say that there are other reasons that the white spider killed the white moth on this white flower. They may believe that the situation is just too small and insignificant to be controlled by something. The speaker hints that he himself may believe this this when he ends the poem with “If design govern in a thing so small.” (14). Here it seems the speaker is questioning his thoughts about something designing this encounter between the moth, the spider and the flower. He believes that the situation might be too small and insignificant to have something or someone controlling it. It very easily could have been a coincidence that the three white things came together. Moths are drawn to light, so the white flower would be something that it would be drawn to, due to the brightness of the color. And although the spider and the flower both being white when they are not meant to be is strange, it is a small situation in which genetic defects could have played their part. The speaker may have been considering these things when they ended the poem, but they do not ever give us an answer. We, as readers, are left to make the decision for
Morgan Campbell
Catherine Cross
ENGL 1000.06 X/Y
March 10th 2015
“Design” is a poem that can support the belief of a higher power controlling what is happening, and can also create an argument to believe things are just a coincidence
Paraphrase
The speaker, who is talking to his audience, and speaking in third person, finds a plump white spider on a flower ready to eat a white moth. The moth is like a rigid satin sheet of cloth, dead, killed by the spider. They are sitting on a white flower, called a heal-all, which is said to have healing powers. The three are surrounded by darkness and wrongdoing. The spider is a murderer, the moth has been …show more content…
They could say that there are other reasons that the white spider killed the white moth on this white flower. They may believe that the situation is just too small and insignificant to be controlled by something. The speaker hints that he himself may believe this this when he ends the poem with “If design govern in a thing so small.” (14). Here it seems the speaker is questioning his thoughts about something designing this encounter between the moth, the spider and the flower. He believes that the situation might be too small and insignificant to have something or someone controlling it. It very easily could have been a coincidence that the three white things came together. Moths are drawn to light, so the white flower would be something that it would be drawn to, due to the brightness of the color. And although the spider and the flower both being white when they are not meant to be is strange, it is a small situation in which genetic defects could have played their part. The speaker may have been considering these things when they ended the poem, but they do not ever give us an answer. We, as readers, are left to make the decision for