Design by Robert Frost

                           

                             
Poem:

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

About poem:

         This poem is written by Robert Frost. In which he describe design of god or destiny. For understanding of god's design he gave three example, White flower, spider and moth. Through these insect poet wont to say about design of destiny.


 Setting of the poem: 
                               

        The setting of the poem, like the theme itself, is very small. The speaker is looking back on a tiny memory, one that he would have forgotten long ago if it hadn't been so bizarre. All the action of the poem happens on top of a tiny flower.  
    
Summery: 

         The poem begins with a simple setup—the first three lines introduce us to the main characters. We have a big white spider on a white flower, poised to eat a white moth. The speaker sees this bizarre little albino meeting as some weird witches' brew, as all three are brought together for some awful reason.

         That observation leads the speaker to a series of questions: Why is this flower white, when it is usually blue? What brought the spider to that particular flower? What made the moth decide to flutter by right then?
 
           Frost concludes that if it were "design" that brought these three together, it must be some pretty dark design. In other words, it's not a comforting thought to think that God went out of his way just to make sure this moth got eaten. But that's the crucial "if" of the last line: if design does govern these small things. (What if—gulp—there's no design at all, and everything in life is just totally random occurrences?) The reader is left with just as many questions as Frost. This short poem takes a simple little thought and pushes us all the way to questioning the very nature of creation and life as we know it. Well played, sir. 

Theme: 

1)Fate and free will:
We're big on freedom, sure, but everything has its limits. For thousands of years, humans have taken comfort in the idea that, while we might make our own choices, someone or something is still in ultimate control of the universe. We like the idea that not everything is just coincidence. It makes us feel like there's a good reason (even if we can't grasp it) why we missed our bus and got splashed by a passing truck in the process. But in "Design," Frost sees the scary side of that idea. If a creator is in control, that means that this god must have a hand in everything, including all the terrible stuff.

2)Fear:
"Design" isn't a ghost story. Really nothing all that awful happens. A spider gets ready to eat a moth. It's the circle of life—get over it. But the philosophical argument that Frost develops begins to play with some of our deepest fears.  
 
3)Supernatural:
In "Design" there's a lot of supernatural stuff going on. We've got the big guns of the supernatural world: God and the cosmic forces that control our lives. But we also have the small potatoes of the other-worldly realm—witches, overweight spiders, and pale flowers. The whole poem is about big things and small things and whether those big and small things are controlled by superstition, by God, or even by nothing at all.

4)Existentialism:  
In "Design," Frost examines life as he finds it in the physical world and wonders about all the big questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Were we made this way? Those aren't exactly multiple choice, kids.