Project 1b – FIRE and ICE

When I first read this poem over and over for a few times, I could not relate what Robert Frost was trying to bring across in the poem, except for the very literal juxtaposition of fire and ice in relevance to the world of desire and hate. As such, the first step I took was to go online to research on the poem itself, to break it down before adding my understanding to it.

From my research, I found out that he was actually relating fire to desire and ice to hatred, and how these two would destroy the world. In addition to this that most people probably found, I found out that this poem was published during the period of time when people were actually really concerned over the destruction of Earth, either by an ice age, or by the Earth’s core heat. I found it quite interesting as this would be a bridge or link between the past and present, and how the poem would be interpreted differently when read in these different periods of time.

After that, I started sourcing for my images on the internet. However, as I was not proficient with editting, I could only do basic colour and lighting editing instead of composing my own images using various sources. My first idea was to search for a literal representation of the Earth’s ending in both methods of ice and fire, in relation to both the poem and the debate over the actual destruction of the Earth. I managed to find a picture adapted from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”, which shows an area covered in ice and snow, including a frozen ship in front of the Big Ben clock tower. This shows the depth and scale of the frozen areas, and represents how Earth has been destroyed by an ice age. On the other hand, I tried looking for visual representations of the Earth’s core and its heat. However, most of the photos I found looked either more like a Sun, or just molten lava which I felt was not pinpointing the Earth’s core directly. Thus, I had to use a more scientific picture depicting the Earth’s core. Both of these pictures are full coloured, with the first being very blue, the second more red and yellow.

Then, I started sourcing for images to depict hate, and then desire, which represents the ice and fire respectively. I decided to depict hate and desire across a spectrum, instead of separating them into two completely different groups. I used a photo which shows a man’s clenched fist in the foreground, and a woman curling up in fear in the background. This shows violence and in turn hate from what I make out of it. The picture was in monochrome, which also shows that lack of warmth in hate. I also like the contrast between the sharp foreground and the blurred background which brings across the message of the violence.

Then, I decided to move to the other end of the spectrum before finding a bridge for the two. I started looking for pictures to depict desire. I found a picture of a row of matches getting lit up by a lighted match. I like how the picture literally shows how desire will consume a person like how the fire consumes the matchstick and destroys it. It is also a literal representation of the Chinese saying “欲火焚身”, which literally translates into “the fire of desire cremates”, which shows the destruction by desire. The background is also red in colour, which is also associated with being very warm, passionate and full of desire. I feel like the matches give me a general direction of moving towards the left, in a such a way like they are actually queuing up to be ignited by the lighted matchstick, which brings in the notion that desire is something voluntary. It’s like a willing want instead of something forced upon. I kept the colours of this picture as it contributes a lot to the notion of desire and passion.

After settling both ends of the spectrum, I wanted to find a picture that could link up them up. So what could be consisting both of hate and of desire? I thought of riots. Riots are a combination of both as they are started to overthrow or show unhappiness about something at present, depicting the hate notion, the hate of the present situation. They are also started to bring into effect something new or what they believe in, which depicts the notion of desire, the desire to change to something. Thus, I found this image of a riot which I felt had a nice composition. The background shows a huge population going on a riot or strike, showing the massive scale in the background and some sort of symmetry. Yet, at the foreground is a man shown sharply, throwing something forward and breaking this symmetry despite standing in the middle of the picture. I decided edit the colours of this picture, most importantly the saturation of it such that it becomes a bridge between the monochrome hate and the red desire. Thus, showing a spectrum from hate to desire, from monochrome to full colour.

Then, I arranged them into 2 rows to show the contrast between the background of the poem, and my understanding of it.

The first row shows an ice age, then the Earth’s core, to show the contrast between the two just like the contrast between hate and desire.

The second row shows my understanding of hate and desire in a spectrum, in line with the first row with hate on the left, desire on the right.

Ice Age
Ice Age
Earth's Core
Earth’s Core
Hate / Violence
Hate / Violence
Hate and Desire / Riot
Hate and Desire / Riot
Desire / Matches
Desire / Matches
Final Layout
Final Layout

Information sources:

http://www.gradesaver.com/the-poetry-of-robert-frost/study-guide/summary-fire-and-ice-1923

http://www.shmoop.com/fire-and-ice-frost/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Ice_(poem)

Image sources:

http://www.ucarecdn.com/6501b727-e85e-4703-972c-865b1923beff/

http://attitudes4innovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/o-PASSION-facebook.jpg

https://garyullah.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/man-with-clenched-fist-an-014.jpg?w=1200

http://s1.thingpic.com/images/6u/Rde4kYdV9bbZ58eXL2Ax1TiN.jpeg

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/hd/2343f01925741.55c1f3dd94536.png