Prompt Post 3 - Fire and Ice

3)Using Frost's poem as a starting point, discuss the symbols of fire and ice in Dante's Inferno. Where does he employ each and for what purpose? How does each symbol relate to Dante's overall plan in designing his hell?

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
and would suffice.
- Robert Frost

Frost's poem, inspired by the Inferno, uses the same symbolism as Dante's Inferno. Fire is used as a symbol to convey desire while ice is used to symbolize hate in both works.


Fire first appears in Lower Hell, also known as the City of Dis. The Heretics, who denied the existance of God out of the desire for a different belief. The Heretics are locked in “chests of pain: for in a ring around each tomb, great fires / raised every wall to a red heat” (71). They are burned for their disbelief in heaven or hell.

Fire reappears in Circle Seven with the sinners who were violent against God, though now the fire is more representative of the wrath of God. This wrath could be considered as a desire for the sinners to learn their lesson as stated in Canto III as the sinners cross the Acheron.

The sinners of the Ninth Circle are known as the Blasphemers, the Sodomites, and the Usurers, all violent against God in one way or another. They are damned to remain on a "plain whose soil repels all roots… [as] the ground was burning sand” where “great flakes of flame” fall ceaselessly (111). The plain is too hot from the fires for Dante and Virgil to even walk on as they have to walk under the shade that "guard[s] the stream and banks from the flaming snow" (118).

These depictions of fire show how destructive desire is as it "burns" and consumes all else. The fire itself has caused great pain like the desire it represents in Dante's work, showing that the Heretics, the Blasphemers, the Sodomites, and the Usurers wish to deny God was a destructive that ultimately burns them instead.

Fire itself is destructive, present in explosions and able to burn until the skin can no longer heal. Desire evolved from this property probably because of the quick spread of fire and its ability to destroy.




Ice is present only in the last region of Hell, the Ninth Circle. This is probably because the sins of hate are less common than the sins of desire even though they hold equal or greater powers of destruction. Dante as the author may wish to believe that desire is more prominent in society than hate as well if his life is observed.

The ice is used to imprison the traitors, the sinners of this Circle, who promoted hate between their kinsman, their country, their guests, or their benefactors through their betrayal. The ice of Dante's Hell, like in Frost's poem, symbolizes hate, and is "a lake so frozen that it seemed to be made of glass" (261). This shows how the sin is great enough to warrant such a massive size, and, being cold enough to freeze tears instanty, a powerful force.

The cold further sybolizes hate as it spreads slowly amongst others, much like ice spreads from the outside of a lake to the center. Some of the sinners of the Ninth Circle are so close to each other that "the hair of their heads had grown together"
(262). One sinner is even eating another sinner's head, claiming that Archbishop Ruggieri had betrayed him and led to the death of his sons. This in turn made Count Ugolino "turn [to] stone inside," blind to his sons' suffering until it was to late. His hate of the archbishop intensified, while he also betrayed his sons in not aiding them. This is further spread of betrayal and hate, showing the slow spread that has the power to affect many lives over time.

Ice can also be a source of exposions despite its usually slow spread, showing that hate can also have the destructive power of fire.