The Cold

Within
By James Patrick Kinney
 Paraphrase of The Cold Within

ABOUT THE POET:

James Patrick Kinney (1923-1974) was born in Cincinnati. He dropped out of school
to take care of his mother and hence spent his whole life self-educating and, in the
process, started reading and writing poetry. Apart from The Cold Within, which is
his best-known piece, he wrote a number of poems. Some of these include Of a
Rejected Poem, I Can’t Change You, Never Alone, What is Success and many more.

ABOUT THE POEM:

‘The Cold Within’ relays an important message to the reader through a simple
poem. Six people are trapped out in the cold weather with a small fast dying fire
keeping them warm. Each of them had a stick of wood with them which if they
would put into the fire, would give them a chance to survive from the extreme cold.
But none of them were willing to give up their stick because of their prejudices
toward the other people of that group. They would not give up their sticks thinking
that the people whom they were prejudiced against would also survive. This poem,
written in the 1960s belongs to the modern period. It represents contemporary
American society as a whole. Through this poem, the poet tries to give the message
of compassion and brotherhood.

STANZA-WISE PARAPHRASE:
Stanza-1: The poem introduces the story of six men in the first stanza. The poet
presents six “humans” who were trapped by happenstance in bitterly cold weather.
The reference to “six humans” refers to all human beings. Each person had a stick
of wood. They were all sitting by a fast-dying fire. In the last line, the poet makes it
clear that the story is not written by him.
Stanza-2: From this section of the poem, the poet talks about the activity of each
person in the group. The dying fire needed to be fed with logs of wood. The poet
refers to a woman who due to her racial prejudice, refuses to give her stick for
kindling the fire. In the first line, the poet refers to the fire as “dying” depicting the
loss of humanity in the modern world.

Stanza-3: The third stanza talks about a man suffering from religious intolerance.
He refuses to give his stick as there was a person who was not Christian in the
group. It is a reference to hypocrisy.

Stanza-4: The fourth stanza refers to a poor man in tattered garments and he “gave
his coat a hitch” while his turn came. He hated rich men, and was jealous of them.
At the moment of action, he thought why he should use his log to warm the rich
man sitting in that group. He then refuses to give his stick up.

Stanza-5: The fifth stanza is in contrast with the previous stanza. In this stanza, the
rich man keeps himself busy in thoughts. Without giving his stick, he thought about
protecting what he earned throughout his life from the poor.

Stanza-6: The sixth stanza is in contrast with the second stanza. Here, the black
man hated the white man of the second stanza. His face was revengeful. The fire
had been put out already. The man could give his stick to the fire but held it back
for the lack of compassion for the white man.

Stanza-7: The last man was a business-minded person. As none contributed their
sticks to the fire, he held his back. He only thought of the materialistic gain even if
the situation demanded something from him for the sake of his life. In this way, he
forgot the value of life.

Stanza-8: As the fire is extinguished, all the people die. They didn’t die because of
the cold outside but because of the cold within themselves. They were too selfish
to help others. They still had the sticks in their hand showing that they didn’t
renounce sinning.

PERSONAL RESPONSE OF THE POEM:

This poem tells us to live together in unity. We should not be prejudiced to any
human being on any grounds. We should be compassionate and generous to
everyone and should be ready to help them at any time. I think that this poem was
a good way to bring about awareness to the readers and will make certain people
think twice about discrimination and prejudice. The poem was simply written for
the readers to understand it well and also understand the deeper meaning and
message of the poem.

Bibliography:

Treasure Trove Poems Workbook

https://poemanalysis.com/james-patrick-kinney/the-cold-within/
https://www.thefreshreads.com/james-patrick-kinney/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Within