Fire And Ice Poem

NCERT Class 10 English Chapter 1 Poem – Fire and Ice

In Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," the speaker wonders how the world will end and presents two possibilities: fire or ice. Fire represents desires, greed, and ambition, which consume and spread quickly, leading to egotism and destruction. Ice symbolizes hatred, coldness, and indifference, causing people to become uncaring and rigid. The speaker suggests that the world could end due to either fire or ice because both are spreading rapidly. This poem explores the destructive forces of human nature and the potential consequences of unchecked desires and emotions.

Thinking about the Poem (Page 15)

1. There are many ideas about how the world will ‘end’. Do you think the world will end someday? Have you ever thought what would happen if the sun got so hot that it ‘burst’, or grew colder and colder?

There are different ideas about how the world might 'end'. I think that one day, the world will come to an end because everything that starts also ends. For example, if the Sun gets too hot and explodes, all life on Earth would disappear because it couldn't handle the heat. Similarly, if the Sun gets colder and colder, life would end without sunlight. Sunlight is very important because it gives energy to all the planets in our solar system.

2. For Frost, what do ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ stand for? Here are some ideas: greed,  avarice,  cruelty,  lust, conflict, fury intolerance,  rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference, hatred

‘Fire’ stands for greed, avarice, lust, conflict and fury. ‘Ice’ stands for cruelty, intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference and hatred.

3. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it help in bringing out the contrasting ideas in the poem?

The rhyme scheme of the poem is: a, b, a, a, b, c, b, c, b.

This pattern helps show the different ideas about "fire" and "ice" in the poem. The poet, Frost, talks about how "fire" represents desire and might end the world. He also mentions "ice" to show how people being cold and uncaring towards each other could also end the world. The poet knows enough about hate to believe that destruction caused by hate (ice) would be enough to end the world.