[the tyger and the spider speak - draft]

In “Design,” Robert Frost touches upon the notion of a higher order or divine being, dancing around the idea and entertaining the thought; whereas, William Blake’s “The Tyger” is much more overt and further asserts this suggestion of a God/creator. Frost and Blake utilize similar techniques and devices to suggest or advocate the existence of a greater control, a “puppet master” perhaps. Through the employment of animal and nature themes; exploiting the method of rhetorical questioning; and providing unconventional imagery of nature-- the two poets, either explicitly or shrewdly, insinuate the presence of a superior control that which governs everything, from our lives to that of a tenacious tiger or a miniscule moth. 

Both “Design” and “The Tyger” display strong nature and animal themes. The protagonist (if you will) of one being a “dimpled spider” and the other a tiger, respectively. In his sonnet, Frost establishes a dominantly snow-white setting of the natural, day-to-day occurrence of a spider’s repast. He establishes this lasting scene before proposing to the reader the concept of a higher order following the volta of the poem. Readers are taken from a picturesque panorama of pure simplicity to the mind-boggler of the century (is there a God?). In this way, Frost first entrances his reader with this seemingly harmless scene, dressed in the innocent veneer of whiteness before introducing the darker meat of the poem, the portion that raises insight and questions (which Frost strategically chooses to leave unanswered). 

In the same way that Frost hits us with the oh-so-irregular image of a white spider, Blake strikes readers with the thought of a “tyger burning bright.” Instantly, you are made to comprehend the vivacity of this tiger, the central subject of the poem; its “orange-ness” takes on a whole new height. In contrast to Frost, however, Blake chooses to at once cut to business-- immediately ruminating over this tiger’s existence. He begins with the strong image of a burning tiger and continues to pummel readers as he hurls byzantine queries this way and that in nearly every other line of the poem.

Frost, too, unleashes the tool of rhetorical questioning from his arsenal, though he also deliberately puts to use the method of not answering the questions he himself poses. This way, he lays this responsibility on the reader-- leaving much left to the imagination. Frost only implies to enough to provide readers with a basis to ponder the ever-baffling question of: “is there something, or someone, more?” In “The Tyger,” Blake is not only more brutal and upfront with his use of rhetorical questions; he also answers these questions (with more questions, “Did He smile His work to see?”) In the first four stanzas of the poem, Blake’s refers to a divine being which is yet to be actualized, as the “he” refers to is yet to become a proper noun, this changes in the fifth stanza where he chooses to answer the proposed questions and dubs this greater power as “He.”

On second thought, these two poems actually have a common protagonist-- God.