FIRE AND ICE
ROBERT
FROST
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 gets so hot that it ‘bursts’ or
grows colder and colder?
Ans: There are
unquestionably numerous thoughts regarding how the world will 'end'. I do
accept that the world will end some time or another as whatever has a starting
will have an end. This stands valid for the world also, if the Sun got so blistering
that it burst, the entire of the Earth would die promptly as no piece of the
Earth can bear the warmth of that power. Be that as it may, if the Sun grew
colder and colder, all that will reach a conclusion as without sunlight, life
will end.
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
This rhyme scheme helps in drawing out the
differentiating thoughts of 'fire' and 'ice' introduced in the poem. The poet
makes reference to that both fire and ice are probable ends of this world. He
discusses how fire addresses desire and can in this way be a reason for the
apocalypse. Robert Frost also makes reference to ice in between to represent
that the coldness and indifference towards each other will be sufficient to end
the world. In the subsequent verse, he says that he is aware of enough hate on
the planet to be certain that even destruction through ice would be adequate to
achieve the apocalypse.
