The Imagery of "Design"

List of images:
"a dimpled spider, fat and white"
"a white heal-all"
"a white piece of rigid satin cloth"
"Assorted characters of death and blight" "the ingredients of a witches' broth" "A snow-drop spider"
"a flower like a froth"
"dead wings carried like a paper kite"
"What had that flower to do with being white"
"wayside blue and innocent heal-all"
"white moth"

Robert Frost’s poem, “Design” paints us a very vivid picture
of the aftermath of a natural cycle of life: predator vs. prey. Frost begins by
describing a “fat and white” dimpled spider that was proudly displaying its
catch of the day: a poor white moth, described as a “piece of rigid satin
cloth.” What is most interesting about the spider eating the moth is where the
action takes place. The poem illustrates a beautiful, “heal-all” flower as the location
of the feeding. The interaction between these two animals and the flower
provides us with a context that provides us with a possible interpretation of
the poem: Is there a deity watching over us?

Frost underscores his possible beliefs with several paradoxes
dealing with the three objects in the poem. What Frost really highlights are
the light colors of the animals and the flowers being contrasted by the
darkness that comes with death. White and blue are happy, albeit plain, colors
that have no stand-alone association with death, yet Frost chooses these colors
to represent the spider, the moth and the flower. Frost also mentions “What had
that flower to do with being white, the wayside blue and innocent heal-all?” The
flower is a beautiful representation of life, yet it is central to the theme of
death in the poem because of the death of the moth taking place on it. This paradox
only furthers a possible assertion by Frost that there is no God, what with
death being necessary to further life, which in itself is a paradox.

Frost ties up his poem with several questions as to why
events unfolded in the way they did in regard to the spider, moth, and flower.
Frost wonders why the spider would make the flower instrumental in its capture
of the moth. It could be that Frost was implicating that even in beauty lies
death, and that even what seems to be the safest of places is not safe at all.
This leads to the assertion of doubting a supreme being; why would anything so wonderfully
“designed” also be an instrument of death? Who knows…