POETRY ANALYSIS: Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
FIRE AND ICE by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
- THEME
Safe to say that the destructive power of mankind is the major theme of this poem. It isthen followed by hatred and desire as its themes as well. The narrator tries to paint the wreckage of this world that is caused by those two things which I have mentioned above. How terrible those things are and to know that human emotion could lead the world to reach its downfall is frankly alarming; how things we thought are just something small could bring the world to fall in devastation. Honestly speaking, I think this poem is one of the best embodiments of realistic events that are thoughtfully written in words; how it could bring us deriving some moral value, that even the slightest things could turn out to be a disaster.
- TONE
Though this poem is indeed toned ironically, I could capture an image of the narrator’s mouth bespeaking over this poem solemnly, despite this fact, the narrator conveyed this lightly that build up the conversational atmosphere— e.g. it makes the audiences who heard this poem could as well pondering deep and be drowned within the ocean thoughts of the topic; the end of the world that can occur because human’s emotions.
- FEELING
You might able to see that the emotions which illustrated in this poem were the feelings of hatred, a dead empath, desire and greediness— we cannot put those feelings aside, indeed. Nevertheless, in my perspective, this poem is conveyed contemplative since it involves a prolonged thought of things as well as requires us to be reflective towards the whole situation and be attentive to each detail of it while as well gently reminding us not to be careless in managing our emotions.
- INTENTION
I think things that the narrator would like to give us an understanding of how huge the impact of human emotions is towards the lives of living beings. How impactful it is empathy and sympathy that one owns for the world that it could be very dangerous when those two things have faded away. How desire and greediness could drive people to be out of their minds only to make them obtain things which they have been always yearning for. How is it honestly pathetic to see people no longer derive pleasure from the smallest thing ever since they are devoured by the greediness within them. And of course, he as well wishes to make us remember the importance of managing our emotions in their stable state, not merely for the sake of our goodness, but, for everything around us, too.
To dream and to yearn for things is totally fine since it is counted as one of the things that make us have lust in life, however, when it starts to make us loses control over ourselves and when we start to be numb to things and are apathetic towards things around us; perchance, this is the moment when we should realise if those things aren't healthy anymore.
- IMAGERY
We may use lots of imagery from this poem knowing we are required to imagine the situation that is told in this poem to could fully understand the whole meaning of it.Well, first, visual; by merely reading the word world, ice, and fire, we might picture an image of those things in our mind. E.g. when we hear the word ‘world’, perhaps what comes first to our mind is the image of a land with its living beings, and when we hear the words fire and ice, perhaps we may witness an image of a solid blueish/transparent water and a flame that is blazing. Next, there are heat/feelings, we may as well imagine the feelings of cold and hot by hearing the word ice and fire here. Kinesthetics and action as well occur in this poem— as we hear the word destruction, perhaps we get that image of war here and there, chaos, people fighting, things around including building crushing, et cetera.
- VOICE
There is one narrator in the poem. This narrator identified her/himself with the use of I, as an implication if it is conveyed through the first person perspective.
- SYMBOLS
In the surface area, sure thing we may easily spot the symbols of the poem. They are fire and ice which implied a strong sense of hatred, greediness, unsympathetic, extreme pressure of desire, et cetera. These symbols are validated by the poet himself. He claimed that those two symbols are indeed added to I’mply those meanings in which I have mentioned earlier. Those things drive the world to meet its downfall. Truth be told after I did some research to find the meaning of it I found many interesting things I may obtain from this poem, although each people have a different interpretation of these things, however, I tried to link them all and see this from many perspectives; this is the beauty of a poem. By looking at these lines‘ I think I know enough of hate’ and ‘But if it had to perish twice’,we may assume if the narrator of the poem implied that he has had enough of seeing hate being tossed here and there in each corner of the world that he no longer even minds if the world, in the end, would really be devastated by fire or ice, though by that means he has to see the world crushed twice.
- FIGURES OF SPEECH
I think the narrator here embodies fire and ice by connecting them to human emotions as if they are really living beings, that here they are described to have the capability to devastate the world. The metaphor alias analogy is as well used here; he uses two contrasting opponents in which each of these representing desire and hate.
- METER AND RHYME
Fire and Ice is written in a single nine-line stanza, that heavily focused on the two last lines of the poem, and talking about the meter of this poem, it is an irregular combination of iambic tetrameter and dimeter, and the rhyme scheme of it is ABA ABC BCB).
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References:
Poets.org. (n.d.). “Robert Frost£”. Accessed on March, 24th 2023 through:
https://poets.org/poet/robert-frost
LitCharts. (n.d.). “Fire and Ice Poem Summary and Analysis”. Accessed on March 24th 2023 through:
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/robert-frost/fire-and-ice
Wordsrum. (May, 10th 2020). “Fire And Ice Symbolism: Interesting Meaning Behind The Poem”. Accessed on March, 25th 2023 through:
