My literary analysis of the poem “Fire and Ice”.

“Fire and Ice” is a poem written by Robert Frost.

Taking the title alone into consideration, I think about two different concepts: the image of fire, which is a hot, destructive item, might depict strong human feelings such as passion, love or even anger, while the image of ice, which is a cold and rough item, might represent feelings such as sadness, depression or anger as well, but in a distinct way. These two nouns are connected by the conjunction “and”, which links the first word to the opposite one. By doing this, we may imagine the poem below to be about life (“Fire”) and death (“Ice”) or even passion (“Fire”) and distance (“Ice”) in a human relationship or friendship.

The text is arranged into 9 lines, which are divided into 3 stanzas of different lenght separated by full stops. It tells about two different opinions: one is about those people who think the world will end in fire, the other is about those who think it will all end in ice. The speaking voice agrees with the first opinion because of what he/she has experienced in the past, but he/she also thinks that, having felt “enough of hate” (line 6) previously, if it all had the chance to end twice, it could also finish in ice.

The first stanza is distinguished from the others by the fact that it immediately shows the two opponent opinions with the expression “Some say” (lines 1 and 2), explaining who thinks what. The repetition of this expression makes the reader’s concentration focus on what the two opinions are actually about, highlighting the difference between the first and the second one.

The second stanza connects to the previous one with the sharing of one of the two opinions, quoting “I hold with those who favor fire” (verse 4). However, before saying this, the speaking voice quotes how he/she bases his/her opinion on what he/she had “tasted of desire” (verse 3) previously in life: the word order of this sentence focuses the attention of the reader on the fact that the speaking voice has felt something in the past that pushes him/her to prefer the idea of the world ending in fire. Also, lines 3 and 4 actually rhyme, both ending with “-ire” with the words “desire” and “fire”, two words that are not only linked phonically but even semantically, being both two nouns used for things such as love or passion. Actually, fire itself reminds the reader a sense of desire and viceversa.

The third stanza is the longest one out of the three, being composed of 5 lines (while the others are built by only 2 lines each) all rhyming one to the other: lines 5,7 and 9 rhyme ending with “-ice”, while lines 6 and 8 rhyme with the alliteration of the consonant “t”. Here, whoever speaks talks about the fact that if the world could end twice it could also end in ice because of all the hate that he/she has felt in the past, saying that the destruction of ice “would suffice” (verse 9). This makes us think that the speaking voice has been through a lot before componing this poem: he/she has felt a lot of contrasting emotions, both happiness and even depression or anger in his/her life, probably in a relationship, knowing the destructive power of either “Fire” (passion) “and” (which connects and alternates the two) “Ice” (cold feelings).

I reckon the speaking voice’s message is clear to everybody who has felt such strong emotions in his/her own lifetime: passion and hate can destroy even the biggest thing (metaphor for the end of the world), which can be his/her own heart to somebody, destroied because of a relationship or friendship.