ANALYSIS - Fire and Ice

Just looking at the title, the reader can imagine the subjects of the poem to be fire and ice, in fact the reader's attention is drawn to the worlds fire and ice. These worlds call to mind several meanings because of their contraposition, when somebody has in mind fire and ice, he or she thinks about a fanciful fight against these two opposite elements. Considering, instead, a more religious vision, fire can be associated to hell and devil, therefore to evil and sin. Thanks to this conception, fire and ice can be easily thought as two independent wicked destructive forces which destroy everything they meet and don’t combat each other.

Proceeding with the layout analysis, the reader notices suddenly the particular structure of the poem, indeed the three middle lines have all the same length, the second and the eighth are the shortest, while the first and the last appear longer. Therefore, there is a symmetrical structure that probably links to the dichotomy between fire and ice, the two elements that, in this case, coexist.

Reading the text, it seems to be arranged into three pieces divided each other by full stops. The structure of these parts is similar to an argumentative text structure, there is, indeed, an introduction made up by two lines; a thesis and an argumentation for fire; a concluding antithesis for ice.

Thus, the first part of the poem, introduces the question of the entire text: Will world end in fire or in ice? The poet wants to present the argument so that the reader can make his or her conjectures, in fact there is an anaphoric construction that creates in reader’s mind no prevalence: he can decide what is better on his own. For example, from an initial reading, the general meaning of the poem, can link to the climate changing, however, it’s improbably because of the epoch when Robert Frost lived: in the first half of the XX century, when the climate changing wasn’t a treated thematic; then, the meaning may be another.

The reader notices there is a sort of rhyme scheme in the text, not really definite, however going reading deeply, ice and fire get more separated by the use of the rhymes, indeed the rhymes with the world fire appear in the fire’s paragraph only, while the ice rhymes are in the ice’s one. This differentiation creates a stronger duality between fire and ice in reader’s mind.

Probably, due to the many allusions made in the text, the poet seems to side with the opinion that sustains the duality and the coexistence of fire and ice, not their eternal fight. Reading the text, indeed, the poet thinks none of them is going to prevail, even because they don’t combat.

Going to the meaning of the text, there are two destructive forces that will destroy world, the poet agrees with the ones who think fire is going to destroy word, however he is not contrary to the ice. He compares the fire to desire, and ice to hate, then this apocalypse is made by emotions, not by something associated to fire and ice as elements.

Therefore, the end of the word, will be made by humans, their strong emotions as desire and hate, two feelings that apparently can destroy word. This poet’s though is reinforced by his experiences (I tasted, I know), which seem to help the poet to be believable. Thus, the general meaning of the text may be, probably, that evil feelings like hate destroy society.

A strange verse is the fifth line, which says perish twice, he is in the middle of the poem and probably is another reference to the dichotomy of fire and ice, anyway, how can something perish twice? If the subject is something it isn’t possible, however if it’s something not material, like feelings, it becomes doable, and this is another hint, the intelligent reader can find to determinate the subject of the poem; that, in fact is not material.

In my opinion, there might be a link between the poet surname and ice, maybe, when he writes about the destructive force of ice, it could be a sort of personal recovery; even because of the puns he had heard during childish on his surname, for example.