Compare and contrast "Fire and Ice", "stopping by woods on a snowy evening" and "Desert Places" by Robert Frost

The poem “Fire and Ice” written by Robert Frost was first published in the 1920s. Robert Frost is considered the bard of New England. He wrote in great depth that appealed simple to readers, but there was deeper meaning if you looked closely. Although poetry has many different interpretations because it is structured on opinion not fact, the poem “Fire and Ice'' may seem to come off as the geological hell of the world, but if you look closely it portrays the theme of hatred and desire. The poem has a rhyme scheme of A, B, A, A, B, C, B, C, B. The poem follows a one nine line stanza with a pivot in the fifth line. There is no specific setting in the poem. The speaker's voice is the poet, and he is giving an opinion on our world. Although Robert Frost appeals to the common man, he gives a deeper meaning in most of his poems.

Frost's poem centralizes around the metaphors of fire and ice. He is using greed, desire, and lust as a metaphor to fire. The reason he uses fire is because fire, desire, or greed, spreads rapidly and devours everything in its path, until there is no more left to burn. He then goes on to mention an alternate way for the world to end. He uses the word ice to be a metaphor for hatred. “But if I had to perish twice/ I think I know enough of hate/ to say that for destruction ice/ Is also great” (lines 5-8). Lines five through eight show that if the world didn't end in desire that it could end in hatred. In line nine, the meaning of suffice could mean equal. Although Frost believes desire may come before hatred in our world, he also comes back to say hatred is equal and is no less.

The poem “Fire and Ice” displays two important themes in our everyday lives. He shows two flaws of human nature and how they can lead to the destruction of mankind. Frost sends us the message that hatred, greed, and desire deteriorate mankind and can destroy all and no matter what we do, it is inevitable and will always be in our everyday life. Robert Frost says that in the end, it would not make a difference which one ends the world. They both are equally destructive and have the same result, and that is disregard mankind as a whole and separates us all.

On the surface, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a simple as it gets. The poem “...explores the theme of the individual caught between nature and civilization”. The speaker is traveling through some woods on a snowy evening when he stops to gaze and take in the beauty of the scene that he has encountered. He and the horse are the only ones in the woods in complete ...