Robert Frost's 'Fire And Ice'

1236 Words5 Pages

“Two plus two is four,” my kindergarten teacher told us. At one point, our young, curious kindergarten minds will ask ourselves “is two plus two really four?” We will find out sooner or later, perhaps after a receiving some derision from our classmates or teachers, that two plus two in fact equals four. How great life would be if this certainty applied to all aspects of it. Life contains many “gray areas” where the boundary between right and wrong are blurred to the extent that we cannot objectively determine a certain action to be the best action to take. When we are faced with two difficult choices, we try to select the choice that will best satisfy our interests, but if both choices had the potential to be equally detrimental to us, what …show more content…

While the narrator had claimed that the end of the world in both fire and ice were bad alternatives, I have always wondered how this narrator from “Fire and Ice” would respond if he was placed in a situation where the end of the world was inevitable and approaching, and he has the power to choose between fire or ice for a limited amount of time as the method by which the world ends. It is quite easy for us to objectively discuss the possible advantages and disadvantages that each action would lead to, but when it’s time for us to take an action, it is almost impossible for us to decide. I’ve had the pleasure of being absolved from the responsibility of making important decisions for the past 18 years, but only several months are left until that buddle that shrouds me from the responsibilities of adulthood pops and exposes my poor, innocent soul to the horrors of the real world. I will constantly face the burden of choosing between two unfavorable choices. Should I just accept the fact that I will have to choose …show more content…

Every time the “North” of North Korea is mentioned, my parents get in serious arguments on the issue. As we all have learned at one point in our lives or another, the Korean peninsula was divided into two countries after the Korean War: North and South Korea. The government of North Korea resembled a fascist, pseudo-communist government, while the government of South Korea resembled a modern democratic, capitalist government. For decades, despite its economic failure, North Korea allocated most of the money that it generated into the development of its military, leaving millions of its population emaciated. North Korea has constantly plotted to take over its extremely wealthy neighbor to the south, threatening South Korea whenever it had an opportunity to. As a result, the leaders of South Korea were faced with very difficult decisions to make. On one hand, if they wanted to maintain its wealth and success, they had to prevent war between the two nations, which most likely meant sending food, supplies, and more importantly money to North Korea, which would almost certainly go into funding North Korea’s military. On the other hand, if they did not want to give up those resources to the North Koreans, they would be forced to fight with North Korea, a mutually assured destruction. Clearly, these leaders are

Open Document