Paper No. - 10 “Design” – Deconstructing the idea of “Whiteness”
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This document is a student paper analyzing Robert Frost's poem "Design" and discussing the concept of "whiteness". It provides an analysis of Frost's poem about finding a white spider holding a moth, questioning what design could have brought them together. It then discusses critical whiteness studies and how whiteness has historically been constructed as virtuous and superior, while blackness is portrayed as evil. The student argues that whiteness has not always necessarily represented goodness and virtue, and that we need to change our conditioned mindset that associates whiteness with superiority.
Paper No. - 10 “Design” – Deconstructing the idea of “Whiteness”
- 1. Hiteshbhai C. Parmar • Topic :- ‘Design’ – Deconstructing the idea of “Whiteness.” • Paper Name :- The American Literature • Paper No. :- 10 • P.G. Enrollment No. :- PG13101024 • Roll No. :- 09 • Semester :- 03 • Year :- 2014 – 2015 • Date :- 02/10/2014 Submitted to Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar.
- 2. Design - Robert Frost • 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
- 3. Design - Robert Frost • 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.
- 4. Design - Robert Frost • 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.
- 5. • Frost concludes that if it were "design" that brought these three together, it must be some pretty dark design. • 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.
- 6. • "What but design of darkness to appall? -- / If design govern in a thing so small." In the horrible but inevitable logic of "Design" Frost replaces God's design with the artist's.
- 7. Deconstructing the concept of “Whiteness” Critical Whiteness Studies, one could say, exist since the first encounter of the European colonizer and the non- European colonized. Turned into an academic discipline only in the mid- 90´s, they could be described as the collection of knowledge that NON-WHITES have gained and cultivated about WHITES throughout the centuries.
- 8. “Whiteness” • analyzing "race" as a social category after the postcolonial studies` attempt, is analyzes the construction of the Self. • i.e. the construction of the one that is actually looking at the Other. (perspective of white people)
- 9. Here, White portrayed as a Good.
- 10. Here, Black portrayed as a evil.
- 11. Why did the killing take place on a white... Poem • Dimpled spider. • A white heal-all. • Kite’ and ‘a paper kite’. Symbolized • appears charming tone of pleasant. • Purity and safety. • Is another image of death-like rigidity.
- 12. • White is something good, Spiritual.
- 13. • Black is something Evil, terrible, immortal.
- 14. “Whiteness” “History written by victorious people(winners).…..” • Just because white people were in Superior they portrayed white as a Virtue.
- 15. Brain is the most important part of the body…. Why ? According to brain….
- 16. “Whiteness” • Moral words were printed in white and immoral words in black. Just as we unthinkingly—almost unconsciously— “know” a lemon is yellow. • we instantly know that sin and crime are black and that grace and virtue are white.
- 17. Conclusion o Till today we have seen that white is a virtue, superior and now we can say that there is no possibilities that white is always good. o Now reality is different that white will be good or not, but our mind is conditioned in such direction that white is superior. o So change our mindset and think out of the box.