What Does Fire Symbolize In Literature

"I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to know that for destruction ice is also great." Robert Frost. This is a sentence using the archetype; a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology; fire and ice that is used lots of times throughout literature. Throughout different uses of fire and ice, the good and bad associations with each one, will be explained. There will also be many examples throughout to help link each one to a real life example.

Fire is often related to passion. Red is energizing, it excites the emotions and motivates to take action; and red is associated with fire. An example of this is in Best Laid Plans (chapter three) the main character is in a situation of meeting the one she loves and the book says this "At first she was too stunned to respond, and then passion hit her like the fiery breath of a dragon." The example is showing that the passion is strong and fast like fire or the fiery breath of a dragon which brings out the intensity of passion and love to create a move vivid scene. Fire and passion are used together lots of times and how passion is symbolic of fire, it's fiery connection is what makes it so.

Fire on the other hand can also be bad, symbolic of death because of danger and consequences that can follow not using fire right.

An excellent example of this is in the book Night by Elie Wiesel in chapter two where when the train of Jews are approaching a concentration camp and Mrs Schächter says "Jews, listen to me,’ she cried. ‘I see the fire! I see flames, huge flames." This is great example because in this scene they all see a place of death, where she is certain she will die here. A sad scene bad a powerful one that represents the connection between fire and death and sets a mood of gloom and fear of death whenever at this camp. So, fire can be death/danger in different types of

literature.
Ever heard the expression cool as ice or that for someone to "Chill" out. These expressions is used though the archetype ice used in this context of good about being calm and not being angry or mad. Throughout literature it is used like in Brooklyn nine nine a show where the police force goes through different challenges and tries to overcome them. In this example Terry had an addiction, to overcome it Terry had to "reset" his brain he dunked his head in ice cold water. This represents how ice can represent calming, he had to calm himself through the archetype ice. This is represented because of common ice is to calming and how just looking at it the normal person would understand it without much thought and how it its presence is so common. In conclusion, ice can be calming and be a stone for a calm natured person.
Ice can be the complete opposite though and can mean death and cold-hearted in the sense of how cold ice is. Robert Frost does a great example of this in his poem Fire and Ice. He talks about the destruction of mankind and how ice can lead to the end. In a couple lines he puts this "To say that for destruction ice, Is also great, And would suffice." Here he talks about how the fire how greed is great in the sense of fire but ice, or the cold-hearted nature of mankind, could bring destruction to Earth. He does a great job of recognizing the archetype ice comparing it to the potential death of mankind through our cold-hearted nature. He never specifically says it but leaves the archetypes presence in the poem. So, ice can be as dangerous as fire and be end of all thing good.
One of each, fire and ice, has been explained through one good and one bad fire each one. Fire had passion and death/danger. Also ice had calm and death. They all had examples to help grasp the full context of the archetypes. Finally, the hope is you, the reader fully understand the fire and ice archetype to help you have a better understanding of the symbolic nature of literature.