The Road not Taken and Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
Both Fire and Ice and The Road Not Taken are poems by Robert Frost. Frost is regarded as one of the 20th-century poets who stand out. This is because he was rare in that he could relate with both the critics and the public. However, Frost never attached himself with any specific poetic movements until when he started publishing his written works more widely in America. Therefore, the imagist poet was vital in enabling him to promote his work. Frost, therefore, uses the similarity of options in The Road Not Taken and the differences in Fire and Ice to look into human nature and decision-making
Fire and Ice looks into the potential of humanity to cause the end of the world. Therefore, this poem can be defined as a work of eschatology, which refers to the end of the world. This poem is categorized under the oldest literary tradition. Thus, humanity has been thinking about how the world will end practically since the world was created. On the other hand, The Road Not Taken occurs in a pastoral setting whereby the actions of the characters help to explain fundamental truths concerning the life of human beings. The poem talks about a time when most people were running from the traditions of the 19th century. Therefore, The Road Not Taken uses traditional meters. However, both of the poems, sound modern as Frost used everyday speech and colloquialism. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
To begin with, Fire and Ice discusses the difference between two main things that destroy the world. Frost uses simple language to explain the main meaning of desire and hatred that has been talked about in the poem. This is because the poem states that both fire and ice will destroy the world. Fire and Ice also explain how the narrator opted to stand with the people that had chosen fire since he had tested desire. However, if one had to want to die by two things, the narrator decides to hate. Hate represents death by ice since he views ice to have a mighty force that can be compared to that of fire. Therefore, the poem explains that fire and ice can both cause destruction. Fire and ice are therefore used to express the authority and anxiety that make one get an identity.
The Road Not Taken has two meanings. The author writes about celebrating weak individualism. The speaker discussed in the poem has to choose between taking one road. Eventually, he settles for the less travelled road and hopes that his choice stood out for some reason. Moreover, Frost brings in the ambiguity that makes things unclear on whether the speaker’s way of thinking ought to be valued by whether the speaker made a simple and major selection or whether his selection had an unclear impact.
Fire and ice discusses some of the significant traits of humanity that are dark enough to be compared to the ability to be used up by desire as fire and the hate as ice. Desire stands for negative aspects, including jealousy and greed, that will end up destroying the world. Therefore, it is clear that jealousy and greed are vital in affecting people’s minds and emotions as they interfere with how they think. Regardless, either of the aspects often tends to overwhelm the other one since they lead to restlessness. Therefore, the elements can only be compared to fire as it keeps burning in a person’s mind and cannot be stopped unless the main agenda is reached (line 3-5). This can also be compared to murder. Thus, greed and jealousy are the central vices that destroy the world currently. Most people end up fighting each other out of the jealousy of seeing their friends become more successful than them in their lives
Besides desire, Fire and Ice talks about hatred as being part of the characteristics of people. Ice is used to represent hatred that will eventually cause death (line 2). This is because ice is cold and wherever there is ice, the place is most likely to freeze. Therefore, the poem uses ice to explain the coldness that exists in people’s hearts whenever they are consumed by hatred (line 5). This is because when someone possesses hatred, they change and become inhuman and unable to control their emotions like before. The primary purpose of the presence of cold and warmth is to help control temperatures so that life can be more sustainable and comfortable around the world. Therefore, the absence of warmth to regulate the temperatures in people’s bodies can lead to evil deeds such as killing innocent individuals.
On the other hand, The Road Not Taken is a metaphor whereby the roads stand for the many choices life has to offer. The metaphor explains how people are unable to know what the future holds, just as the speaker cannot tell what is ahead of each of the paths. Additionally, whatever the speaker seems to know about the roads, later on, turns out to have been minimal, thus reducing the possibility of predicting where a person’s life choices will end up. For instance, in lines 2 to 3 and 14 to 15, the speaker says that she only has the chance of choosing one rad since she does not have the liberty of coming back and accepting the other road. Therefore, the two ways represent the choices of life that include the confusion of selecting the available options and the painful process of being unable to foresee the consequences.
Additionally, the road that is less travelled stands for nonconformity. This is because the speaker settles for the way that has not been used a lot. Therefore, when the poem ends, the speaker confirms that selecting the less travelled road brought about major differences. This implies that the speaker had opted for a life of nonconformity and is satisfied by the results. Regardless, when choosing the road to take, the speaker did not have a way of knowing which of the roads had been used less. The speaker states, ‘had worn them really about the same’ (Line 10). Therefore, this makes the symbol complex. Thus, there are questions about whether the opinion of the speaker defines nonconformity or individualism. However, I find the road that has been used fewer times, to be a symbol of nonconformity since it represents the challenges of defining that aspect.
The setting of Fire and Ice is completely non-specified. This is because it is in the mentality of the speaker who has to think which aspects between ice and fire will cause the end of the world. The setting of the poem is also defined by the type of connection the reader and the speaker have. Therefore, the regular tone used by the speaker helps to refer to the irony in the poem. The major aspect of the poem that determines the entire setting is time as the poem revolves around imagining the future and end time of the world. Therefore, the poem is set in the present time. Additionally, the poem makes the reader think that destructive events could be very near.
The setting of The Road Not Taken is in a forest during autumn when the leaves have just started to change their color. Most importantly, the setting of the poem is at a place where two roads meet. The roads form a fork, continue from that point, and wind up so far into the forest they get out of sight due to the undergrowth of the forest. However, one of the roads can be observed as being more used as compared to the other one. Regardless all of them have newly fallen leaves, and to some extent, they look similarly worn out. Additionally, the poem is also set in the mind of the speaker. For instance, the three stanzas depict the speaker as remembering how the forest looked like, the two roads, and what choice he or she made of what road to take. However, the two last stanzas depict the speaker as someone who assumes to be in the future and getting back to the present time to the moment he was faced with th decision of choosing one of the two roads. Therefore, both settings are sensible since the poem seems to explain the direct judgment of the speaker about settling on the less used road. Additionally, the poem is a metaphor that seeks to explain how the speaker agrees with his past choices.
The rhyme scheme in Fire and Ice is a tight-knit since all the end words in the poem are perfectly rhymed. The perfect rhyme helps to develop a sensible flow to the entire poem, which helps to create the conversational tone of the whole poem. However, the differences in meter make the readers be able to predict the rhymes since they sense they will eventually be present. This, therefore, helps to estimate how the light stanza sounds which brings in humour. Additionally, the poem was able to have irony, which was brought about by how the subject matter of ice and fire was presented.
On the other hand, the rhyme scheme of The Road Not Taken has a regular rhyme scheme. Additionally, besides the poem using a systematic end rhyme, it uses an irregular use of assonance. For instance, in lines 7 to 11, the vowel sound of ‘a’ has been repeated in the word ‘and’. This helps to add a pleasing musicality to the entire stanza. Frost uses the rhyme scheme in all his works, and it was normal for him to use a strict rhyme scheme in The Road Not Taken. However, at times, his use of rhyme schemes can cause errors.
In conclusion, human beings are used to living without thinking about how their decisions have built them. Therefore, Fire and Ice and The Road Not Taken both depict the need to making sensible decisions as they discuss how our lives are defined by whatever choices we make.