by Robert Frost
The poem "Design"by the New England poet Robert Frost is a criticism of God's design about the universe.There is a small of blasphemy here. In the poem there is the image of a white spider eating a white moth siting on a white flower called "White heal-all" and this a terrible image - the image of destruction against a positive background, the background of purity. As if a terrible murder is taking place in a romantic moonlit night. So, something impure is taking place against the background of impurity.
In the second stanza of the poem Frost's questions are - isn't there a destructive design about the universe?Isn't something impure being done against the background of purity?The poet is criticizing God through such rhetorical questions.The terrible imagery in the poem is very important because the poet is hinting at a deeper meaning about the universe through such imagery. And the meaning is : the things of the world apparently look very positive but they are essentially negative. Frost's destructive
image of a white spider eating a white moth siting on a white flower is like Shakespeare's destructive magic broth image in "Macbeth".
"Like the ingredients of witches'broth -
A snow - drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite".
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| The imagery contained in these lines gives us the taste of Shakespearean terrible image of the magic broth prepared by the witches.The poem" Design " is a typical poem of Frost in the sense that it moves from the seen to the unseen, from outside to inside, from sight to insight. It is a matter of discovery both for the poet and the readers.It is because of such terrible images used in the poetry of Frost and his anti-romantic themes that he has been dubbed as a terrifying poet. |
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