Fire and Ice
"Fire and Ice" is one of the many poems by Robert Frost. This piece is one of the better in his voluminous collections. It is a bi-level poem that compares two sets of opposing worlds. The impact that the meanings of these worlds have is distended by the understatement at the end of the piece, which is entirely reflective of the piece. The essence of this piece is in the compression of a sinister order and the possible chaos that "the heat of love or passion and the cold of hate," can draw to the core of humanity. Frost warns of the potential destruction that fire or ice can hold in their extremities. It is as if this omnipotent speaker stands at the event horizon of ultimate anti-virtues, peering down at both the wake and aftermath. He seemingly stands unmoved in the universe, infinitely testing the limits of the soul with subtle force. Connectedness is the key to the central idea of this poem, and abstract analysis makes what is symbolic, concrete. Though fluctuations in the interpretations are expected due to personal differences, there are the basic facts that cannot be denied.Two essentially different forms are apparently placed as opposing facets at the beginning of this piece, and an incongruity is drawn
It is slow in its onslaught and festers its victim, whereas fire obliterates in the blink of an eye. To "think" is to reason, and the misuse of reason far surpasses the immoral intent of desire by leaps and bounds. The speaker takes a personal standpoint on this, for as line three reads, "From what I've tasted of desire". "Fire and Ice" is a poem where the symbols are given a role to play, they are indispensable, and in fact even named outright. Desire has caused men to kill others for things that they may want. When "Some say the world will end in fire, /Some say in ice. Fire feed off of almost all things organic and inorganic, incinerating and destroying with utmost indiscretion, and leaving absolute annihilation in its wake. " Is the destruction of the world by ice in any way "great"? And why would it suffice? This affects the entire tone of the poem. There is nothing similar in their molecular make-up at all, and it is absurd for both to exist at once. Ice solidifies and hardens and is in fact a solid itself, unlike fire, which takes on almost fluid mannerisms. With this understood, the poem unfolds the actuality that these destructive forces are not favorable at all. There is, though, the understatement that both of these lines imply, thus, giving the knowledge of how far these emotions went by their own accord. They can both have the same goal in mind, such as a persons desire for another, and another persons hate towards that other. The end lines of the poem, give an insight to the other, and truer concept by the means of another understatement. Fire also causes impenetrability, due to the fact that nothing can enter an inferno without destroying itself.
Common topics in this essay:
Robert Frost,
Earth Shapley,
Nine Circles,
Fire Ice,
Nicomachean Ethics,
Inferno Frost's,
Cartesian Dualism,
Shapley Harvard,
Professor Shapley,
fire ice,
Existentialist Dualism,
desire hate,
ice age,
hate desire,
ice/ great/ suffice,
perish twice,
cause death,
hate/ destruction,
i've tasted,
tasted desire,
desire speaker,
destruction ice/ great/,
hate/ destruction ice/,
i've tasted desire,
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