Interpretations of Robert Frost's Poem, "Design"
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.
The heart of Frost's poem is a picture, which is described in the octave. We are introduced to three creatures the narrator happened to come across: "a dimpled spider, fat and white" (line 1), a white flower, and, held up by the spider, a white moth. Each creature is introduced separately, but all three are later on mixed together in the speaker's eyes, to demonstrate the rarity of their assembly. Carter refers to this description as ironic, ironies that nature presents to man. He sees the irony in the fact that the three creatures are described in a way that one wouldn't depict them normally, and their association with innocence. The spider is dimpled and fat, implying the sweet innocence of a young child, and it's unusually white. The flower is a heal-all, chosen specifically and ironically to invoke images of healing, of medicine. In the poem, however, the heal-all is responsible, in a way, to the moth's death. And like the spider, the usually blue or purple flower is white. The unusual whiteness i...
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...ith no design at all?" as for the third option, the last two lines could have been reversed, and the question that raises from the line "what but design of darkness to appall?" (line 13) would have read as a fact - "design of darkness to appall (!)." But since Frost hasn't done any of those since he is knows for his "deliberate ambiguity", Huzzard claims that the poem wasn't meant to be resolved in an explicit way.
For conclusion, both Carter and Huzzard agree that the poem wan not meant to end in an explicit way. They both understand Frost's reason to end the poem with an open line, a line that can't be read in one specific way. However, while Huzzard sees three different yet coexisting possibilities in the last line, Carter thinks that Frost meant to imply that one shouldn't read to much into small events in nature, such as the scene described in the poem.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
He merely commits to writing a deliberation of what he understands to be a reality, however tragic. The affliction of dissatisfaction that Frost suffers from cannot be treated in any tangible way. Frost's response is to refuse to silently buckle to the seemingly sadistic ways of the world. He attacks the culprit of aging, the only way one can attack the enigmatic forces of the universe, by naming it as the tragedy that it is.
Instructor Mendoza English 1B 22 July 2015. Robert Frost: Annotated Bibliography. Research Question: What are the common themes in Robert Frost's work? Robert Frost is a very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner.
In his narrative poem, Frost starts a tense conversation between the man and the wife whose first child had died recently. Not only is there dissonance between the couple,but also a major communication conflict between the husband and the wife. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband is at the bottom of the stairs (“He saw her from the bottom of the stairs” l.1), and he does not understand what she is looking at or why she has suddenly become so distressed. The wife resents her husband’s obliviousness and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him about what she feels. Husband does not understand why the wife is angry with him for manifesting his grief in a different way. Inconsolable, the wife lashes out at him, convinced of his indifference toward their dead child. The husband accepts her anger, but the separation between them remains. The wife leaves the house as husband angrily threatens to drag her back by force.
I know that my view of the piece is not the only true way to go but I also know that this is poetry and it is meant to be looked at from different angles. I wouldn't be surprised if someone took the angle of saying that Frost was drunk and couldn't find his way home. There is no real answer to what this poem is about and I'm just taking the realist approach and saying that "The Road Not Taken," is not about life's ultimate choice but rather simply about a walk in the park.
Frost establishes at the outset his speaker's discursive indirection. He combines the indefinite pronoun "something" with the loose expletive construction "there is" to evoke a ruminative vagueness even before raising the central subject of walls. A more straightforward character (like the Yankee farmer) might condense this opening line to three direct words: "Something dislikes walls." But Frost employs informal, indulgently convoluted language to provide a linguistic texture for the dramatic conflict that develops later in the poem. By using syntactical inversion ("something there is . . .") to introduce a rambling, undisciplined series of relative clauses and compound verb phrases ("that doesn't love . . . that sends . . . and spills . . . and makes . . ."), he evinces his persona's unorthodox, unrestrained imagination. Not only does this speaker believe in a strange force, a seemingly intelligent, natural or supernatural "something" that "sends the frozen-ground-swell" to ravage the wall, but his speech is also charged with a deep sensitivity to it. The three active verbs ("sends," "spills," "makes") that impel the second, third, and fourth lines forward are completed by direct objects that suggest his close observation of the destructive process.
Robert Frost’s “Design” is a poem of finding natural cruelty in the serenity of nature, a melody of understanding. Upon reading the first line, not unlike the whole poem, a joke in tone, rhythm is building up an image that grows into something else. In “Design”, the joking discovery progresses gradually through a sequence of conflicting images. . Frost uses imagery, allegory, and characterization to accomplish what could only be described as an American emblem poem. This essay will analyze Frost’s “Design”, interpreting the underlying message and overall theme Frost may have been trying to convey.
David Wyatt writes, "Nowhere in Frost is the tension between surprise and anticipation, wayward experience and the form into which it is cast or forecast, more acute than in 'The Road Not Taken'" (129). As the poem is read, one cannot help but be pulled into the questions of which road will be chosen, how they differ, and what will become of the traveler. Perhaps some hope to find guidance for their own journeys by seeking answers in Frost's work. According to Michael Meyer, "The speaker's reflections about his choice are as central to an understanding of the poem as the choice itself." (97) Frost himself admits, "it's a tricky poem, very tricky." (Pack 10)
Robert Frost's "Design" is a Petrarchan sonnet that questions God's design of nature and if there truly is a design to life which is illustrated through the use of irony, simile, strong imagery, and a rhetoric question. The sonnet is composed of an octave with the rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA and a sestet with the rhyme scheme of ACAACC. The theme of the poem is written with a sense of admiration for nature, but a skeptic mind for the meaning behind the design of life.
Nature is an important theme in every frost poem. Nature usually symbolizes age or other things throughout Frost’s poems. In lines 5-10 it says, “Often you must have seen them loaded with ice a sunny winter morning after a rain. They click upon themselves as the breeze rises, and turn many-colored as the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells.” This demonstrates how nature can sometimes symbolize something. Also in lines 29-33 it says, “ By riding them down over and over again until he took the stiffness out of them, and not one but hung limp, not one was left for him to conquer. He learned all there was to learn about not launching too soon.” In lines 44-48 it says, And life is too much like a pathless wood where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs broken across it, and one eye is weeping from a twig’s having lashed across it open. I’d like to get away from earth for a while.”
The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death.
The poem itself tells us that Frost’s experiences influenced his understanding when it says, “From what I’ve tasted of desire” and, “I think I know enough of hate” (Frost). The destructive force of fire represents desire while the ice represents hate. Clearly, Frost has experienced fire, or desire and passion. Perhaps the strongest desire of all being the love he gave his wife Elinor. Frost also says that he knows enough of hate, indicating his experiences with icy hatred during World War One, or perhaps the hatred and loneliness he felt after the death
Imagery is one of the most notable elements in the poem due to the fact that Frost is describing the setting and scenery for the majority of the poem. His word choice is quite specific, clearly painting a picture for readers to visualize the scene he is describing. Frost describes the paths the narrator is considering as “two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” (1). Frost later goes on to describe the path the narrator is considering by stating, “…it was grassy and wanted wear” (8). The imagery is perhaps used as a means to demonstrate the fact that the way a path may look is not entirely representative of what lies ahead. Choices in life should be made with a great deal of thought, going beyond the superficial appearances. The narrator considers both paths before making an informed decision. The outward appearance of a path is not nearly as important as knowing what is best for an individual overall. The imagery in Frost’s poem sheds light the importance of making a choice by the narrator considering both paths in great detail because he or she recognizes the lasting influence a decision can have throughout his or her
First, in the poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” there is a lot of nature expressed. Frost’s very first sentence already talks about the woods. Whose woods these are we don’t know. Also, in the poem he states that the narrator likes to sit and watch the snow. He is also a nature lover. In the second stanza Frost refers back to the woods. He must also like ice, because he brings ice and cold up a lot in his poems. Once again Frost brings ice up when he mentions flake and cold wind.
...ert Frost 's poems, I now see his poems in a different perspective. I once thought as many do, that Frost 's poems where about nature but now I know that Frost 's true intention was of “taking life by the throat” (Frost Interview). While others consider him as a nature poet, Frost doesn’t believe himself as one and we can see his perspective in his poems but especially in “Mowing,” “After Apple-Picking,” and “The Road Not Taken.” Frost actually uses nature as an analogy to human life experiences or the troubles that people go through. He reflects these poems back to his personal life and the struggles he has been through also. After researching and reading about Robert Frost I have became very fond his work and enjoy looking deeper into his work trying to picture what he truly meant. While Frost uses a simple idea like nature, he relates it back to human nature.