41. Close read by metaphor or simile: (poetry analysis paper)

Definitions of Metaphor and Simile:

-A simile is an explicit comparison between two unlike things which uses "like," "as," "seems," or "resembles" to make the comparison. For example, there is a simile in Richard Wilbur's poem "Mind" in which the mind is compared to a bat, "Mind in its purest play is like a bat /That beats about in caverns all alone."

-A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a comparison is made between two unlike things. For example, Alexander Pope compares "wit" to "Nature dressed to advantage" in the following closed couplet:

True wit is Nature to advantage dressed

What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.

Example of a close read by simile in an analysis on "Design":

Design

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 snowdrop 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.

-Robert Frost

In the beginning of the poem “Design” Robert Frost creates a sinister feel to the imagery by employing dark connotation in a simile. This dark mood of the poem is in keeping with its dark message. In the opening lines of the sonnet, Frost's speaker states, "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-" (line 1-3). The subject of the simile is a "white heal all" and the object is "rigid satin." The rigid satin evokes thoughts of rigor mortis and the satin evokes the image of an interior of a coffin. This simile forces us to associate death with an otherwise "innocent" flower. This reinforces Frost's notion that all in life in ultimately in service of death.

CLOSE READING STARTERS FOR SIMILE AND METAPHOR:

-The subject of the simile / metaphor is ___________________ and the object is _______________________. The connotations of the object are ____________________ ; this is significant because ________________________.