Design Robert Frost Analysis

Morenike Ibidapo Design by Robert Frost is a poem that seems to be describing a moment in time, when one is observing a spider on a heal-all, with a moth caught in the spider’s web. There is not much action in the poem, in fact, the only action taking place is the speaker looking at this scene in nature. It seems that through this observation, Frost is saying that some grand design may be responsible for creating this scene in nature. In this poem, Frost uses a series of metaphors and an altered rhyme scheme to express his feelings of victimization and to pose unanswerable questions to the Creator regarding why life was created as it was. This poem has 14 lines organized into two stanzas: one octave and one sestet. This is a prime indicator …show more content…
However, in the realm of the poem, the speaker seems to find great meaning in the discoloration of this flower, as if it happened by “design,” and has a very distinct reason. It seems that the speaker is really reading into the whole scene he is observing, as something so small as a moth and spider in a web on a flower is no spectacle to most, but a resonating one for the speaker. Perhaps the fact that all three of those things are white could raise an eyebrow, but it seems that the speaker is likely projecting their feelings of victimization onto the moth and flower they have …show more content…
This is likely a rhetorical question, as spiders cannot speak, and if they could, the answer may be as simple as a factor of the spider’s biological “design” which drives it to build homes in certain kinds of plants. Also, based on the number of spiderwebs I have seen over the course of my life that appear in any place that can have something attached to it, I would say that this spider was probably not drawn to this heal-all for much reason besides the fact that a web could be built there. The speaker would disagree with this idea, as they describe the spider as “kindred” to the heal-all, meaning that they are of the same kind. Obviously, the spider and the heal-all are not the same thing physically, but perhaps the speaker means they are of the same kind of spirit. This idea alters the notion that the spider came to the heal-all to bring “blight” to it and “death” to the moth; it would seem now that all of these “assorted characters” are victims in some way. The spider, moth, and heal-all are all victim to their very nature. The spider does not maliciously intend to kill the heal-all it has built its home on, just as the spider and the heal-all holding the web do not plot to hold the moth captive until its death. But, the spider does have to build its home somewhere, and this heal-all happens to be where it chose. The speaker’s next question is why the “white moth” flew