Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a 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,
What but the design of darkness to appall? – If design govern in a thing so small.
Robert
Frost
19
According to Frost, the odd congruence of whites in the poem is the design of darkness. At first, our intellects rebel against the paradox that darkness controls
these three white objects, after all, a little nonsensical. But Frost’s intention is to hint at the possibility that malevolence lurks beneath the otherwise orderly surface
of the natural world. By creating the paradox of darkness that transforms the purest if white into assorted characters of death and blight, Frost make us question
our faith in the eventual triumph of good over evil.
7. Irony
The term irony refers to a contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality.
20
While according to Edgar V Roberts, irony is a mode of ambiguous or indirect expression; it is natural to human beings who are aware of possibilities
19
James H Pickering and Jeffret D Hoeper 1981, loc.cit.
20
Ibid, p. 133
and complexities in life.
21
And there are three kinds of irony include verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony.
Verbal irony is a figure of speech when an expression used is the opposite of the thought in the speakers mind, thus conveying a meaning that contradicts
the literal definition. For an instance is the poem The Adversary by Phyllis McGinley. The word adversary lexically means enemy. But after we read
carefully, the poem stories about mother’s love that will always forgiving her children when they are mistaken. She will always understand her children along
she is alive and strives the entire best thing she could do. Thus we are surprising when start to understand what is meant and it may be adding an extra dimension
to meaning. Dramatic irony is a literary or theatrical device of having character utter
words which the reader or audience understands to have a different meaning, but of which the character himself is unaware. Irony of situation is when a situation
occurs which is quite the reverse of what one might have expected.
8. Hyperbole or Overstatement
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that is in intentional exaggeration for emphasis or humorous effect.
22
It may be for humorous effect, fanciful, convincing or unconvincing. When someone says, “If the river is dry, I’m able to
fill it with tears” or says, “I will eat you if you don’t go right away” he is adding
21
Edgar V Roberts, Writing Themes About Literature New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1964, p. 143
22
Steven Croft and Hellen Cross, Literature, Criticism, and Style Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.179
emphasis to what he really mean. He does not mean that he is capable to fill the dry river with his tear but he means that his tear flows rapidly because some
reasons or he does not really mean that he wants to eat his partner but he is really wants his partner go away hurry. Lets examine the following poem by Alfred
Lord Tennyson: The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he tands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Alfred
Lord Tennyson
23
In the poem above, poet stories about how strong and robust the eagle is. In the poem there are some things exaggerated in part of the eagle. Alfred Lord
Tennyson perfectly describes hyperbolic statement by using appropriate words. From the first line till the last, easily we can catch those hyperbolic impressions.
Overstatement impressions may also be strengthening by choosing appropriate dictions so increasing an exaggerated effect in the poem. Hyperbolic impression
will be felt over when reading the second line that is close to the sun in lonely lands. It is an impossible thing that all creatures could be close to the sun because
between sun and earth is a very long distances and also the temperature of the sun that are very hot.
23
Siswantoro, Apresiasi Puisi-Puisi Sastra Inggris, Surakarta: Muhammadiyah University Presss 2000, p. 35
C. Theme
