Page 2 - Notes

Question 1.
There are many ideas about how the world will ‘end’. Do you think the world will
end some day? Have you ever thought what would happen if the Sun gets so hot
that it ‘bursts’ or grows colder and colder?
Answer:
There are definitely many ideas about how the world will ‘end’. I do believe that the world
will end some day as anything that has a beginning will have an end. This stands true for
the world also, if the Sun got so hot that it burst, the whole of the Earth would perish
immediately as no part of the Earth can bear the heat of that intensity. But if the Sun
grew colder and colder, everything will come to an end as without sunlight, life will end.

Question 2.
For Frost, what do ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ stand for? Here are some ideas:
Answer:
‘Fire’ stands for greed, avarice, lust, conflict and fury. ‘Ice’ stands for cruelty, intolerance,
rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference and hatred.

Question 3.
What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it help in bringing out the
contrasting ideas in the poem?
Answer:
The rhyme scheme of the poem is- a b a a b c b c b
This rhyme scheme helps in bringing out the contrasting ideas of ‘fire’ and ‘ice’
presented in the poem. The poet mentions that both fire and ice are probable ends of
this world. He talks about how fire represents desire and can therefore be a cause of the
end of the world. Frost also mentions ice in between to symbolise that the coldness and
indifference towards one another will be enough to end the world. In the second stanza,
he says that he knows of enough hate in the world to be sure that even destruction
through ice would be sufficient to bring about the end of the world.

EXTRA QUESTIONS
What are the two popular views in the society regarding the destruction of the
world?

The poem deals the age-old belief about how the world will come to an end. Some
believe that the world will end in fire but to others, it will end in ice. It is shown in the

poem that each of them has potential energy to bring about the destruction of the world.

What do ‘fire, and ‘ice’ stand for?
In the present poem ‘fire’ is associated with greed, cruelty, and lust whereas ‘ice’ is

associated with rigidity, hatred, coldness, and indifference.