Professor Underwood
English 1102
4 December 2015
Design Explication Robert Frost takes an interesting approach in his short poem entitled, "Design." In the poem, Frost questions if there is a designer of life or if things just occur randomly. Frost believes that if there is indeed a designer of life, the designer produces both evil and good. Moreover, Frost considers that perhaps good could actually be evil if one is looking close enough, if so, the nature of the designer in the poem is contradictory. Frost 's "Design" mastery in the poem is that its meaning is enhanced by its form, rhyme, and its imagery and connotations.
Despite being considered a sonnet, “Design” does not express the true nature of a sonnet’s meaning. In contrast of pleasing or inspiring, it is unexpectedly doubtful. Frost made changes to the typical sonnet form. He made his own design. Primarily, the usual pattern of a question in the octave followed by an answer in the sestet, is reversed in this situation. The octave in the poem is an observation, and the successive sestet is a question. Additionally, Frost made changes to the usual rhyme scheme of a sonnet; the "cdecde" pattern in the sestet has been changed to "acaacc.” The reader could possibly be caught off guard by the unexpected differences. Frost engages poetic structure to increase the irony of his poem, and interchanges between two different tones. Shock and appreciative are mixed together with lyrical lines. The tone shifts from rapid and
is saying, and Frosts personal pain that he is suffering from that he ingrains into this poem. The
Using a modified Petrarchan sonnet, Frost is able to use the formal rhyme scheme in the first eight lines, called the octave, of abb/aab/ba. While the rhyme scheme of the second six lines of the poem, called the sestet, follows less stringent guidelines, Frost uses that of ac/aa/cc, which is extraordinary in that it carries over the “a” of the octave’s rhyme scheme and introduces it into the rhyme scheme of the sestet. Usually the sestet introduces new rhymes of “c” and “d” but Frost chooses to only introduce one new rhyme to its scheme, that of
There are several likenesses and differences in these poems. They each have their own meaning; each represent a separate thing and each tell a different story. However, they are all indicative of Frost’s love of the outdoors, his true enjoyment of nature and his wistfulness at growing old. He seems to look back at youth with a sad longing.
Design”, by Robert Frost, is a poem that creates an image of a spider eating a moth. In the poem, Frost uses metaphors and similes to ask a rhetorical question; Why do some of God’s creations look so beautiful, but are actually evil?
In the poem Robert Frost uses his rhyme scheme and rhythm to have the sadness flow throughout the entire poem, as his use of terza rima is used to rhyme his words together.\ He also uses alliteration, as to put a point the words in and have the poem have it deep meaning. The sounds used help give it the sad and lonely vibe its suppose to go off, it also gives the poem a simple reading but in reality it has a much deeper meaning, “But not to call me back or say good-by; And further still at an unearthly height One luminary clock against the sky”as
Robert Frost deliberated a intention and was determined to get it across any way that he could. He verbalized his feelings through Walls and Blockages, Descriptive words, and Seasons and Nature. The aspiration of walls in this piece is to block neighbors and assemble a better relationship. Descriptive words are used to portray a improved visual of what is designed to see. Robert Frost speaks of seasons as if it were a human.
Frost's writing style is more fluid, than Bishop's, creating a traditional sonnet of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter with natural language. By using sound to contrast the rhythm of the poem and the tone of the poem Frost's replicates Johnson's poetry form, of adding anticipation and drama, as he depicts the symbology of the demise of humanity in the setting of a natural disaster. Frost also appeals to our humanity with personification, “great waves looked over others coming in, and though of doing something to the shore” and similie, “the clouds were low and hairy in the skies, like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.” Frost gives the water a consciousness and creates vivid imagery within the clouds, combining multiple poetic elements of a natural image.
The poem "Design" explores whether the events in nature are simply random occurrences or part of a larger plan by God, and if there's a force that dominates and controls our very existence. On that point both Jere K Huzzard and Everett Carter aggress on. They differ in their interpretations of the poem's ending and what they think Frost wanted to convey with his vague ending. Both agree that the last line of the poem was written in an undefined way with purpose on Frost's side. But each critic poses his own ideas regarding what is the meaning of that line. While Carter examines the whole poem in order to answer this question, Huzzard chose to focus only on the last two lines.
In the poem "Design” the speaker is attempting to convey an idea of some expanded evil that occurs in an average life. This poem was designed to make the readers of it see different signs of evil in their everyday lives. The poet brings all the material about evil together to front his point, that there is an evil design that is a part of our world. This evil deign is in all that we know, it is a part of nature just like all sorts of other things. Just like every fragment of matter is made up of tiny molecules, our world as we know it is made up of amounts of evil that sometimes manifest with in themself for no particular reason except that there is
The poetic techniques were symbolism, imagery, and tone. Symbolism is the most powerfully used technique due to the fact a good number of lines located in this poem is used to signify a certain object or idea related to our life or today’s world. Imagery in the sense that you can visualize the path, the yellow wood, the undergrowth, the divergence; it is all made very vivid. Frost did this throughout; you know trying to stimulate the reader’s mood using one’s senses. In this poem, imagery permits the reader to imagine the scene that this poem takes place in resulting in an enhanced understanding of the theme. The tone Frost’s work presents is an insecure attitude which allows the theme to be brought out due to the fact the theme relates to a dilemma in one’s life. These techniques strongly aid in the revealing of this specific theme.
In conclusion, Robert Frost uses the form of a sonnet to express his unique visuals of a lady who just lives life for what it has to offer day by day to her best advantages. Using visual and aural imagery to make us understand just how great life can
Robert Frost's Design Robert Frost outlines an ironic and disturbing situation involving a flower, a spider, and a moth in his poem "Design". The poem's text suggests the possibility of an absence of a god, but does no more than simply beg the question, for Frost's speaker does not offer the answer. By examining the events of the poem in the first stanza and the speaker's annotative second stanza, we
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “ The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
Not only are metaphors utilized throughout the poem, but a literary device known as Imagery is as well. Imagery is alternative as important a device for it allows for the reader to have a clear picture of what the character in the poem is visualizing. Furthermore, it also helps covey the theme the author is aiming to represent to the reader. Imagery is made known in stanza two line three, which states, “Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (Myer, 1091). Here the author is using imagery to inform the readers the traveler is coming up with a reason for why one path could be more favorable over the other. The reader analyzes this line of imagery to obtain a clearer representation of the traveler’s decision-making process. Another line where the author uses imagery is in stanza two line five, which states, “Had worn them really about the same” (Myer, 1091). Here the author is using imagery to inform the reader that the paths are “worn” down, which informs the reader that both of his choices have been equally chosen by people before him. These examples help the reader begin to form the theme of self-justification in decision-making. After analyzing the metaphors and the imagery Frost uses in this poem, the reader can conclude so far that the theme the poet is conveying
Robert Frost poem Design is a white spider attacking a moth. In this two-stanza poem, Frost uses this as a metaphor for the world made in the image of God and evil that seems to have infiltrated. Frost uses the relationship between the "cure all-white" and white spider to ask whether God's purpose really applies universally. That is to say, not the worldly conception of God apply to something as minute as the operation of a spider? If it does not, God's plan to implement the actions of people?