Humans, since we could consciously think, have wanted to become animals. Or at least take on parts of them, for the sake of imagination. Humans love animals, but only he ones that appeal to us. The ones with 2-4 legs, two eyes and at least one good set of lungs. Robert Frost admantly shows the rejection that humans can demonstrate when dealing with a 'less desirable' animal, such as a spider.
The initial thought- Seeing some animals as inherently good or evil immediately opens up a huge can of worms. What animals are consciously ‘good’ by human moral standards? When an animal is ‘bad’, it’s condemned to be looked down upon by humans across the globe. What’s worse, more of the cute and soft animals are labeled as ‘good’ and the ugly, awkward animals are ‘evil’. Just for being creepy in our eyes. While people can claim to love all creatures equally, there’s still going to be a bias, just because that’s how humans think. Judgement first, understanding later.
Robert Frost’s Design is his typical nature poem, often enfolding a deeper meaning between the lines. The speaker is never given an name or an identity, and simply describes a spider he finds while investigating a white heal-all or prunella. The spider has just made a decent catch of a moth, and is dragging the creature away to it’s nest. Even within the first line Frost is bashing the spider’s appearance, “I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,” (l.1) While this may just be a general way of describing spiders, it’s also a demeaning and rough choice of words.
In the next two lines, robert goes on to praise the moth in the poem, who has just been apprehended. He writes, “On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-” (l.2-3) ‘Rigid’ suggests that the moth is already dead or paralyzed by the spider’s venom, and is being toted away without struggle. Robert or the Speaker can’t help but find a strange beauty in the living corpse before him, likening it to velvety satin. Compare it to the spider’s, ‘dimpled, fat and white’, and it becomes clear who Frost, or the Speaker, favors.
Looking at the language Robert frost uses in the poem can give insight as to what he or the speaker of the poem thinks of the sider/ the whole scene in general. (how robert applies morality to spiders- last two lines)HUMANS ARE NOT SPIDERS. Robert frost's going around judging spiders aint a system for a basis of morality
Design is a sonnet, with 14 lines and an A-BB-AA-BB-A A-C-AA-CC rhyme pattern. While the rhyming structure is not typical of a sonnet, the poem is written in iambic pentameter, and has a break between the 8th and 9th lines. All of this structure analysis cannot bypass the fact that sonnets are typically love poems, or poems of great admiration. What does Frost admire about the scene before him? It’s nothing special or out of the ordinary; A spider dragging away it’s meal. Yet, Robert feels compelled to derive such lyricism from such a small event, even provoking the image of a larger creator to witness this happening.
Robert is in love with the fact that he can do this. Robert is in love with the way that humans can just watch, analyze, take for themselves what they’ve gained from the encounter. The Speaker in the poem could have easily squashed the spider, or saved the moth from his fate, but he just stands there. Watching. Judging. He could have abided by the rules of good and evil he’s set up, and become a moral ‘hero’ by the end of the poem. However, he remains silent and pondering on the matter. What position is the speaker- morally speaking- in? Or rather, what position has he placed himself in? Who is the greater evil so to say- The one who does the killing, or the one who stands around and does nothing? The moth could be alive, or not. Why waste the energy- then again, why do anything at all?
(analyzing the last stanza pls)
The last stanza and the critical last two lines push the enigma of this poem out into the open. The speaker openly chooses to thrust himself into these rules he’s set up for the situation, and opts to question them in the same poem. Design is the name of the poem, and the call to envisioning a creator, without directly stating that it’s ‘God’ or a manifest higher being. Design implies that there are rules, but they’re mechanical and mysterious, almost random. Despite life and even death interacting, the scene goes on, eventually with the world. The question itself leaves the reader with indirect wonder, but also with the last image of a spider- and questioning why it’s there. Why is the spider there? Frost says Design. A higher consciousness, Good and evil. Then again, the spider could be there because the spider thought there would be good eating there. Dramatic nature poems tend to blow things out of proportion.
By human standards, Frost’s Design is a beautiful poem, and some may call it great. It's just odd to think about an arachnid in such a cosmic way.
