ENL 003 Post #1

The sonnet “Design” by Robert Frost emphasizes the grim device of design that appears to coldly dictate the actions in nature. Although Frost’s “Volta” is fairly abundant in imagery, the images of the defeated moth in the grip of an icy spider atop a flower, the simile of a witch’s broth and the positioning of predator and prey seem to best express the poem’s theme. Established in the first three lines, the scenario of the spider holding its catch on a flower relates to the theme of design in a literal sense because the physical designs of the organisms are described. However, the bleak fate of the moth also connects with the darker aspect of design pondered at the conclusion since it is implied that design precisely directed the spider to seize and the moth to fall.
The ghoulish comparison made in the following three lines between the role of the organisms in nature and the ingredients used by a witch for sorcery again correlate with the dark law of design that is being explored due to the wicked imagery and specificity both sets possess in creating affliction. This description of grim roles given in the fourth line also implies that design is characterized by a lack of compromise since each creature had a part to play in this callous scene, whether predator, prey, or witness, without any being spared responsibility. An example of imagery introducing outright sinister elements, it would support the hypothesis that the speaker regards design in a negative light for the ill it associates with nature.
The third image of the spider climbing atop the flower and the moth heedlessly flying in the dark in lines eleven and twelve is important to interpreting the poem since it creates an opportunity for the speaker to offer design as a reason for these calculated actions, reinforcing the negativity of design. Since each creature is almost described to have been obligated to possess such properties, it also solidifies the recurring concept that the darker aspects of design imbued in living organisms are unavoidable and necessary, even on a minute scale.