Fire and Ice

 

Robert Frost

'Fire and Ice' is about destruction, the central theme of the poem. The second part of the poem indicates destruction by ice, which is causes by a complete absence of love or an all-consuming hatred for someone or something.

Summary

‘Fire and Ice’ is a short poem by Robert Frost. In this poem, the poet refers to two predictions of how the world will end. Some say it will end in fire whereas others say it will end in ice. According to the poet ‘fire’ stands for desire, greed, avarice or lust. The more you try to satisfy them, the more they grow. There is no end to it. They spread rapidly like fire and engulf your whole life. One becomes selfish and sometimes cruel also. On the other hand, ‘ice’ according to the poet, stands for hatred, coldness and rigidity. One becomes insensitive and indifferent towards the feelings of others. The poet says that both fire and ice are growing with such a rapid speed that the world would soon perish either way, in fire or in ice.

 

Critical Analysis

Fire and Ice is one of Robert Frost's shortest poems but gives the reader much to ponder on. Casual in tone, with cliches, it introduces to the reader the profound idea that the world could end in one of two ways, with fire or ice, through desire or hate. If you listen to the video, read by Frost, it is possible to detect a hint of understatement in his voice. Perhaps a subject of such seriousness needs to be treated with a certain insouciance? It has that traditional iambic beat running through the mostly tetrameter lines - save for three dimeters - which Frost employed a lot and it's this rhythm that could be said to undermine the essential seriousness of the subject - the end of the world. Note that the longer lines can be read a little quicker than the short, which means a different tempo for the reader at lines 2, 8 and 9. From those two alliterative opening lines the reader is drawn into the rhetorical argument - fire or ice for the end of the world? These lines are based on mere hearsay...Some say...who says? experts...the guy on the street, the woman in the bar? The third line, along with the fourth and sixth reveal the first person speaker, keen to let the reader in on his idea of things. His world view. This is a poem of opinion yes, but opinion brought about by personal experience. Everyone knows the world will end at some time but no one knows how. This poem posits fire or ice, then fire and ice, as the likely causes of the world's demise. And to bring the idea into the human domain, the speaker links the elements to human emotion - fire is desire, ice is hate - and the speaker has experienced them both. Delving deeper, if Frost took inspiration from Dante's Inferno, then it's necessary to relate these nine lines of the poem to the nine circles of hell mentioned in Dante's book and to also link the Greek philosopher Aristotle's ethical ideas about human nature, which Dante's book reflects. Aristotle basically said that to live a positive life the passions had to be controlled by reason, and that humans were the only ones capable of rational thought. In contrast to the animals. So in the poem fire is desire which is passion, ice is hate which is reason. Those who strayed away from the positive life through reason were judged the worst offenders, ending up in a lake of ice. Either way, the end of the world is brought about by the emotional energy of humans. Frost's poem neatly expresses this ethical scenario in a nutshell. It's a sort of chili pepper in a fridge.

 

Thinking about the Poem

1.There are many ideas about how the world will ‘end’. Do you think the world will end some day? Have you ever thought what would happen if the sun got so hot that it ‘burst’, or grew colder and colder?

Ans: Yes, I believe that this world will end someday but when nobody knows. Whether the sun gets hot or it gets colder, in both the situations, end of this world is sure.

 

2. For Frost, what do ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ stand for? Here are some ideas: Greed Avarice Cruelty Lust Conflict Fury Intolerance Rigidity Insensitivity Coldness Indifference Hatred

Ans: ‘Fire’ stands for greed, avarice, lust, conflict and fury. ‘Ice’ stands for cruelty, intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference and hatred.

 

3. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it help in bringing out the contrasting ideas in the poem?

Ans: The rhyme scheme of the poem is: a, b, a, a ; b. c, b, c, b. The contrasting ideas of ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ are presented using this rhyme scheme. He mentions that both fire and ice are probable ends of this world. While he talks about how fire represents desire and can therefore be a cause of the end of the world, he also mentions ice in between to symbolize that the cold and indifferent attitude towards one another will also be enough to end the world. In the second stanza, he says that he knows of enough hate in the world that even destruction through ice would be sufficient to bring about the end of the world.

 

Message

The poem Fire and Ice by Robert Frost is a metaphor for human feelings of desires and hatred. Fire represents burning desires while ice on the other hand depicts ice cold hatred. It tells us about how we humans will be the end of our own race.

 

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