Caught In The Widow's Web By Gordon Grice Summary

“The truth is that my fascination is rooted in fear,” Grice reveals as he justifies to the readers why he hunts black widows. Gordon Grice published his essay, “Caught in the Widow’s Web” in 1995 to the issue of The High Plains Literary Review. In it, he explains that this creature is a representation of a powerful evil in nature whose motives are purely malevolent. His informative tone, describing the habits of the black widow, allows the reader to connect to the overarching message that facing vile beings is inevitable. Using literary devices and various tones, Grice communicates his overall theme: evil can be found everywhere, just as it is found in a black widow. The various modes used throughout this text are distinct in helping to set up the overall tone and message
When describing his perception of the widow as a child he says it was, “worthy of ritual disposition, like an enemy whose death is not sufficient.” By using this simile, he helps his audience gain a better sense of what he was taught to believe as a young boy which is that the spider has no regard for life and kills or hurts without a motive. Alliteration can also be found at the end of this essay when Grice writes, “world with the widow.” He wants the reader to focus on that section of the text because it contains the important meaning that God created the widow for a reason, although one may not perceive it that way. Grice strategically uses parallelism in this essay as well. When describing the fears people direct towards the widow, he says, “It is black; it avoids the light; it is a voracious carnivore.” The use of the phrase “it is” is repeated in these lines to organize the idea and make it easier to understand. He utilizes these literary devices so he can portray the overall meaning to the readers in a way they can connect to and understand