Elizabeth Cervantes

06/09/20

Professor Legrande

English 2 Scholars

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” is a poem that describes a distinction of two things

that can destroy the world. He has created many poems that have been able to show realistic

depictions of what he considers rural life. In this poem specifically, Frost does an amazing job in

being able to show a complex understanding of how he views things. This poem demonstrates

some highlights of what human beings could have done to cause what Frost believes to be self

destruction.

This poem is fairly small compared to how others are in length ,but it is still able

to show different poetic devices. One thing for instance that Frost uses, is repetition and imagery

that can clearly be seen in the poem. The repetition that he uses are the words fire and ice which

is the theme that is overall trying to be formulated. Not only is the repetition shown in those

words ,but there is repetition in how Frost feels from his personal experience. His personal

experience is his perspective of what the people of the world have done to cause destruction.

There is also a theme that Frost later is trying to show as a kind of message to help create a

rhetorical argument of whether the end of the world will be of ice or fire. Not only that, but he

too was able to show imagery because in the reader to form their own familiar sensations.
 One also has to analyze and try to understand the way that the author was trying

to put his words into perspective. With this, then one can truly have an understanding of what the

meaning of the poem could possibly be. So, before the theme that comes into one's mind later on,

one has to view what type of tone Frost is trying to portray. In this case, the tone is very clear in

showing a dark and mysterious vibe as it is being read. Thus, going deeper into the context, there

is the idea of bringing in the human domain which are the elements to human emotion. It still

correlates to the tone where the fire is considered to be the desire and the ice is considered to be

hate experienced. Frost basically neatly expresses ethical scenarios that could probably occur in a

nutshell.

Going more into depth, there is a visible notion of a specific rhyme scheme

pattern that is present. So, not only are there words that rhyme with each other, there are patterns

that are contained within the poem. The type of rhyme scheme is aba abc bcb which is shown

with the sequence of the structure that the poem has. The first two lines in addition present to

have a spur of alliteration as there is a deliberate presentation of the initial consonant sounds.

While the last of the two lines show enjambment which is a continuation of a sentence without a

pause beyond the end of a line.

Substantially, Frost creates this poem as a way of showing perspective into the

lives of others. He uses fire as an analogy to represent the desire of passion and ice as hate of

reason. Those who were pushed away from a positive life of reason were criticized to be the

worst offenders in ending up in ice. Either way, based on a specific understanding of the poem,

what can end up being the end of the world, will always revolve around the emotional energy

that us humans generate.