NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 13

Thinking about the poem : Solutions of Questions on Page Number : 15

Q1 : 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.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 13

Q2 : 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 as follows:
1ststanza: a b a a
2ndstanza: a b a b a
The contrasting ideas of ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ are presented using this rhyme scheme. He mentions that both fire and ice are probable ends of this world. While he talks about how fire represents desire and can therefore be a cause of the end of the world, he also mentions ice in between to symbolise that the coldness and indifference towards one another will also 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.