Comparison Of Fire And Ice By Robert Frost

Through this paper an attempt will be made to enumerate and analyse Robert Frost’s perspectives on the human condition and nature,with respect to two of his poems,”Mending Wall” and “Fire and Ice”. The hurdles to amiable relationships will be looked at and the causes behind divisions in humanity analysed. A conclusion as to the eventuality that awaits us in accordance with our present tendencies shall be formed.

“Mending Wall” By Robert Frost(49)

“He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

In the “Mending Wall”, the speaker’s property and the property of his neighbour

Beyond the psychological,a blind obedience or adherence to the ways of the preceding generation also leads to puzzling and hypocritical behaviour; behaviour punctuated by it’s uselessness. So it is a self-imposed handicap in vision and an innate sense of insecurity which make humanity glom onto particularly useless paradigms. Therefore, it seems to me that if humanity is to escape this quandary of hypocritical behaviour then all it requires is the exertion of it’s mental faculties to counter irrational fears and inane tradition.The panacea,as ever, seems to be the application of our generous Grey

In the Fire and Ice, again frost seems to be tackling human nature,but now with an eye toward the eventuality that awaits the human race.Here Frost seems to be belabouring the dichotomous nature of a human mind,i.e, the dichotomy of “passion” and “intelligence”.”Passion” is fire and denotes our animalistic side and brings into view such emotions and feelings as love,lust and hunger while “intelligence” is cold and denotes that rationality that sets us apart from our animal brethren and brings into view such “cold” emotions as hate and distrust. The poem is mulling the end of the human race,the end of the world.will the world die in the throes of raging and virulent passion or will it be assassinated by a cold intelligence?will we see fireworks on the deck of the titanic or will the world be abruptly asphyxiated?It does not matter,for according to Frost,in any case, destruction would be