Poetic Devices and Practical Criticism on Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”

Poetic devices are the most important part of poetry writing. A good poet will always use poetic devices to make the reader involved in the lyrics of his/her poem. And when a poet does this, the reader starts feeling and thinking in the same manner as the poet thinks and feels. This is what Robert Frost does to a reader when he writes a poem. One of his all time favorite poem is Fire and Ice. Frost portrays a huge connotation to his readers through this poem (Kuiper 23). By means of poetic devices, he divulges what will eventually bring this world to an end. Frost provides the readers with two paths i.e. fire and ice which will eventually end to this world.

Fire and Ice is a poem that itself does not need a lot of explanation regarding the meanings of phrases or words, owing to Frost’s focus on making the poem clear and comprehensible by all. In spite of the cleanness of the use of language, the poem brings with it very profound thematic thoughts. Basically, Frost is giving comments upon two of the shadowy characteristics of human beings: the capability to be consumed by envy and lust and the capability to hate (Mishra 103). From these two, he points the greater of two harms i.e. to desire. In putting desire to the leading position with respect to the world destruction, Frost is giving a strong statement in relation to jealousy and greed, saying that more than anything else, even hatred, jealousy and greed are those traits of human beings that will probably bring about the end of this world as well as the human kind. According to Frost, desire is a symbol of the greatest issue that the world comes across. Taking into consideration the fact that this poem was written with respect to the Great War, this declaration is basically considering human lust and greed, the major causes of