Fire And Ice Essay

Within “Fire and Ice” and “Mending Wall,” Frost critiques the human condition. Although the sentence structure of the two poems differ, both poems contain euphonic diction. “Fire and Ice” contains telegraphic and short sentences. However, in “Mending Wall,” the sentences are long and drawn out. The use of the telegraphic sentences in “Fire and Ice,” is to quickly grab the reader’s attention; the reader is forced to get the main idea of the poem within a few short lines. By doing this, Frost emphasizes the contrasting ideas on how the world will end; illustrating those who believe hate will cause the destruction, and those who believe that passion will cause the destruction. In “Mending Wall,” Frost utilizes longer sentences to illustrate his metaphor. This metaphor, again, defining the opinions of two types of people; those who believe in seclusion and security, and those who believe in inclusion and tolerance. By using long …show more content…
Words like ‘ice’, ‘fire’, and ‘desire’, are never ending, due to the fact that they end in vowels and not consonants. The only words within “Fire and Ice” that have a tough ending are ‘hate’ and ‘great’, but even then the words are not cacophonous. Similarly, “Mending Wall” contains words that are euphonic, such as ‘wall’, ‘hill’, and ‘balance’. Although, “Mending Wall” does contain more words with hard consonants endings, these words are not cacophonous, as seen with ‘turned’, ‘each’, and ‘armed’. The use of euphonic sentencing plays into the serene environment that Frost wants the reader to be in; he wants the reader to be put into a false sense of security. Because when the reader feels secure in the writing they will pay more attention to any changes in the word choice. In “Fire and Ice” the words hate and great stand out, and in turn draw the reader towards the author’s biased. And in “Mending Wall” the words like “armed”, accent the contrasting views of the two