(Fire and Ice 58) In the nine short lines of the poem, Frost offers the possibility of two different versions of the same catastrophe. (Leger 113) The fact that the world will end is not in question, only how it will be destroyed has yet to be determined. In his poem “Fire and Ice,” Robert Frost compares and contrasts the two destructive forces: fire and ice. In the first two lines of the poem he presents two options for the end of the world: “Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice.” I feel like he uses the term fire, not to contain the direct meaning of a burning flame, but to represent the punishment that something can inflict on an object. It presents the image of the intense pain in which a burn can impose, along with the extraordinary speed with which it happens. Fire causes a tremendous amount of destruction to virtually anything, in a matter of seconds. It could also simply represent a violent ending. The fact that the world ends in ice seems to present the image of a slower, more paralyzing effect. I feel like he uses ice to symbolize a deliberate, almost imperceptible change that ultimately causes its destruction