In our world today, a number of people are asking a question that does not have an answer. What is the meaning of life? A lot of people want a satisfying answer to that. In Design by Robert Frost, we are going to see how this author feels the same way and how he expresses his idea in a poem. We are going to analyze the meaning of this poem, the form of the poem and also the different forms of imagery the author uses.
In this poem by Robert Frost, the poet is probably trying to question “The meaning of life” which he compares it to a spider. In the first three lines, Frost tells us a story about finding a white spider sitting on a white flower. In the spider’s arms is a white moth, which we find out later is dead. We picture here that it represents daily struggle that all humans face, as humanity consists of both strong and weak. “I found a dimpled spider fat and white. On a white heal-all, holding up a moth…” Lines 1 , 2. In the next few lines, Frost brings out an imagery of a witch’s broth. The witch’s broth is a simile of the world in which the witch probably a superior species places these creatures into the broth, this superior species as known as God, has placed his creatures into this world that Frost is witnessing.
The mood also changes as we read on, in the beginning eight lines the speaker is telling in a smooth and comfortable tone about the scene of nature. Only the observations that the speaker stumbles upon on a walk in nature are being written about. But then all of a sudden in the last six lines of the poem, Frost is shocked and stunned by the results seen. The death that is apart of nature in the poem is being used to describe how we as a society are blind. Through nature we can relate to situations that we as people come across as being blind until the outcome proves to us that death and being discreet are all around us.