After

Robert Frost’s Design is often regarded as the poet’s affirmation of a classical view of God and intelligent design, cuing in on the innocent design of life and death in nature. From the use of pure, white imagery, Frost paints death in nature as innocent design of God. Further reading of the poem however reveals dark subtleties that allude to certain negative attitudes on life. Analysis of these subtleties lead to an unusual reading of Frost’s poem: that Frost is musing on the inevitable negativity in both nature and life, in particular hopelessness that is found in nature and reiterated in life.

Design begins with describing a scene in nature. A fat, white dimpled spider is on a white heal-all, holding up its prey, a white moth. On first inspection, the repeated use of the color white seems to portray a sense of purity throughout the scene, from the spider to the flower to the moth. Within these three lines however there are several dark undertones that must be noted. The heal-all, a flower that is known to blossom blue, is white. A flower named heal-all is in a way sick. It is not able to even heal itself, yet is called “heal-all”. This irony is extended in the fact that this scene of death occurs on a flower that is supposed to heal, not serve as an accessory of death. Another dark undertone is the depiction of the circle of life. Here, the spider must kill and end the life of the moth in order to continue living itself. Frost seems to be alluding to a certain sense of negativity. Frost brings up the idea of the inherent, unavoidable evil that is apparent in nature.

Through the next five lines, Frost continues his use of negative undertones. The three characters mentioned in the first three lines are describes as being mixed like the “ingredients of a witches’ broth”. The spider is now an ingredient, the flower is now bubbly-froth, and the moth is described as “dead wings carried like a paper kite”. The description of the white moth as dead wings sounds almost like a fallen angel, and the use of “paper kite” makes the moth sound almost like a toy of the spider’s rather than just the sustenance needed to survive. Frost describes the event as being conjured by a witch. We see a shift from white, pure, imagery to a dark, evil imagery. These lines depict a twisted view of nature, where a seemingly “pure” event is evil under the surface. Consequently, these lines expand on the inherent negativity in nature.
In the next four lines, Frost uses pointed questions to paint a bleak picture. Frost asks, “What had the flower to do with being white” (9). With this question, Frost points to the fact that the flower had no choice in the events that occurred. In lines 11 and 12, Frost creates the sense of inevitable coincidence, that the preying of the moth by the spider was a hopeless, unavoidable situation. The moth is mysteriously steered towards the location of the spider, and thus dies in the process. Frost creates a string of events where none of the actors had a choice in – that the events were all a series of hopeless coincidences.

The last two lines of the poem read, “What but design of darkness to appall?--/If design govern in a thing so small”. Ending this poem, Frost states that only the design of darkness should be appalled as it happens even in small things. Even in closing the poem, Frost offers no hope to the readers. He ends the poem saying that darkness is designed – inevitable and unavoidable. While the lines can be read differently depending on the context, in the context of negativity these lines are read as a continuation of the theme of hopelessness in Design.

Another aspect to play close attention to is the pattern of inversion throughout the poem. Instead of a black spider, Frost presents a white one. A white heal-all where a blue one is expected. The design of the poem is itself inverted as well. Though the poem is structured as a sonnet, Frost asks questions in the end of the poem and offers no solution, whereas in classical sonnets a problem is posed and solved in the conclusion of the sonnet. The absence of a solution and the inversion of expectations creates a feeling that what should happen will not. This plays into the theme of hopelessness present throughout this poem.

Frost wrote and published this poem in 1936. It is critical to note that just two years prior to this—in 1934, Frost’s youngest child died after giving birth (Reuben). Because Frost’s life was full of tragedy, it is hard not to conclude that Frost’s personal life was indeed factored into his work. The premature death of Frost’s daughter is mirrored in the negativity in the poem. Like Frost’s daughter, the hopeless moth had no choice to live or die, yet it simply dies as a part of its life. Dark messages like these are repeated throughout the lines of the poem, and lend proof to the idea that Frost’s Design is really a reiteration of what Frost saw in real life: hopeless, bleak, inevitably evil strings of events.

Citation:
Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 7: Robert Frost." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/frost.html