“Fire and Ice”

1. “Fire and Ice” Robert Frost

2. The Poem Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

4. Imagery: Pictures in Your Head • What images does the poem create in your head? • How do these images create meaning? • Do you know what the poem means based on the images of the poem?

5. Symbols • What is a symbol? • A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". • Read back over “Fire and Ice” and list two symbols that you see in the poem in your writer’s notebook.

6. Symbols: Their Meaning to the Poem • Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice. • In this poem the symbols of fire and ice stand in for what ideas? • Fire: Passion/Love • Ice: Hatred • How do the symbols add meaning to the poem?

7. Sound Device: Alliteration and Rhyme • Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice. • The repetition of sounds is important to the meaning of the poem. • Any guesses why? • Look at the sounds that are repeated-how do they correspond to the important ideas that the poem discusses?

8. Speaker: The Man/Woman Behind the Words • Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice. • How would you classify the speaker of the poem? • What do you know about him/her based on the poem? • What is the speaker’s purpose? • What questions does the speaker want us to ponder?

9. The Poem Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

10. Line by Line Analysis: What is it really saying? • Lines 1-2 • Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice. • In a poem this short, you have to question absolutely everything. Take nothing for granted. • For example, what does "the world will end" mean? Is the speaker talking in Biblical terms about the Apocalypse? Or is he imagining natural or man-made disasters, like whether we'll blow ourselves up or die out in another ice age? Or does he mean "world will end" in a more personal sense, like the way his world will end, or your world? • At a literal level, fire and ice are both ways that the human species could be extinguished. There are almost infinite possibilities for either one to happen. For example, a giant comet hitting the earth and making it explode: fire. A slightly less giant comet hitting the earth and creating a huge cloud of ash that blocks the sun: ice. • Thinking outside of the "natural catastrophe" box, "fire" and "ice" could also represent different kinds of human emotions. Some philosophers, for example, have divided the human soul into "rational" and "animal" components, where the "rational" is cool and deliberate, while the "animal" is hot and hasty.

11. Line by Line Analysis • Lines 3-4 • From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire. • The word "tasted" implies that he hasn't felt the full brunt of fire's energy – he has only gotten a small sample, like those little bite-sized portions of food that they hand out at grocery stores. • To put it another way, think of the character Cyclops from X-Men. Cyclops wears those sunglasses all the time because they control the energy that shoots out of his eyes. If he were to take them off permanently, they would burn up everything around him. He prevents this mass destruction by focusing the energy. The speaker suggests that we do the same thing with emotions like "desire." We keep them on a leash so we don't lose control. If conditions arose that caused us to lose control…watch out. • "Desire" is considered "hot" because it always relates to the body in some way. The most obvious example is romantic or sexual desire. Sure, love is warm and fuzzy, but sex, jealousy, and desire can run out of control. • The speaker knows about this unstable side of our "hot" emotions. He has been around the bend and acquired worldly wisdom along the way. He's a voice of experience and not just some naïve kid who has only felt puppy love.

12. Line by Line Analysis • Line 5 • But if it had to perish twice, • This idea of the world ending ("perish[ing]") twice is complicated. If we don't even know if the world will end once, why worry about the second time? Would anyone even be around to see to second ending? If fire is more powerful, why wouldn't the world just end in fire twice? • OK, take off your Skepticism Hat and put on your Imagination Hat. • The idea seems to be that "fire" beats "ice" to the punch in the first round of the battle. • Remember that those "hot" emotions are the impulsive ones. If "fire" refers to the animal side of our nature, then the actions associated with it are instinctual – we don't think, we just do. • Icy actions require thinking and deliberation. So, we'll see what happens in Round 2.

13. Line by Line Analysis • Lines 6-8 • I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also great The speaker has also experienced hate, a cold emotion, and he knows it can destroy things – namely, the world. • At this point, it becomes even clearer that "desire" is associated with "love," because its opposite is "hate."The speaker seems a lot more tentative about his relationship with hate. He was absolutely certain that he has tasted desire, but he only "thinks" he knows "enough" about hate. We're in murkier territory with this emotion. • For example, we don't know in what sense he knows hate. Has he only witnessed hate at a distance, or has he been the victim of hate, or has he been a hater himself? • His very hesitancy with the topic (what's he trying to hide?) should set off alarm bells of reader suspicion. Like most people, he has probably experienced several varieties of hate. • Why is hate an "icy" emotion? • You might think that hate should be red-hot because it is so closely related to blind anger. But we think he isn't talking about the kind of anger that comes on you in a fit of rage. We think he's talking about the anger that lingers beneath the surface, that you turn over and over in your mind. • The phrase "also great" doesn't tell us anything about the status of ice compared to fire. So be careful about saying that ice is just as powerful as fire. He doesn't tell us that. When it comes to destruction, ice is in the same league as fire, but we don't know who would win a one-on-one cage match.

14. Line by Line Analysis • Line 9 • And would suffice. • The last line picks up on the idea that we don't know whether fire or ice is stronger. • The end of the poem suggests that it doesn't matter which is stronger: both will do the trick. "Suffice" means to be enough to bring about some effect. • Once you destroy something, it's gone. If you wanted to destroy some document, setting it on fire would do the job. So would tearing it up into a million little pieces. But if you set the document on fire and then wanted to scatter the ashes to the corners of the earth just to be sure, someone would be justified in saying, "Hey, what are you doing? It's over." • Interestingly, the word "suffice" is a very rational and even lawyer-ly word. The speaker seems to be demonstrating "icy" thinking here. If you got a little chill up your spine at the end of the poem, that might be why.