critically appreciation the cold within
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Explanation:
The Cold Within is a poem which seeks to hold a mirror against humanity reflecting how it has degenerated. Human beings have created many division among themselves like class, caste, race, religion, gender etc. The message of the poem is a simple one : if we keep discriminating each other, the world will surely end in chaos.
The Title of the poem is suggestive of all the negative attributes that human beings possess. The cold here is the resentment and ill-will which we bear towards others. These traits must be overcome or we shall be consumed by them just like the characters in the poem.
The poem begins with the narrator telling us about six humans who were trapped by coincidence (happenstance) in a”bleak and bitter cold.” The cold, hopeless setting is instantly sketched by the use of the alliteration ‘bleak and bitter“. An important feature of the first stanza is the use of the term ‘humans’ (Six humans trapped) because that is what the six people are, first and foremost. Before they are the members of one race or the other, one creed or the other, they are human beings. They are human beings who have physical and emotional needs and who are susceptible to both hatred and cold. Unfortunately the failure on their part to recognize this basic fact becomes a cause of their doom.
Each one of them has a stick of wood. This wood isn’t merely a physical object but is symbolic of a resource or potential that all human beings possess. It is our willingness to use what we have for the sake of others that will keep the fire burning. The words or so the story’s told implies that the speaker has heard it from somewhere else which makes this a part of oral parables and folk wisdom.
The fire was slowly dying out and was in need of firewood. However, the first person did not put his log into the fire because when he looked at his companions he noticed one of them was black.We will see how his racist attitude poisons the mind of his victim and how this racist attitude of his will backfire on him. This stanza brings to the fore a literary device of foreshadowing. The “dying fire” not only presents a particular condition but also foreshadows the fate of the characters. One moment it’s a dying fire and the other moment it’s people dying.
The entire group perishes in the end, all holding their fire sticks. They have failed to be of use to each other due to their inherent prejudices. They refuse to acknowledge each other’s humanity and in doing so they die despite having the resources to keep themselves alive.
A personification (death’s still hands) is used to highlight the consequences of committing this sin against humanity. They kill each other through inaction. This inaction is the product of the cold hatred they have against a single person (not everyone) in the group. And in the malevolent process of killing others, they end up killing themselves.
The conflict in the story is both external and internal in nature and may be seen in relation to two components of the poem. The characters are in conflict with their external environment (the cold) and at the same time by being pitted against each other and refusing to use their wood. This external conflict reaches resolution in the death of all.
The poem ends by stating that the reason behind their death wasn’t the cold outside but the cold hatred and prejudice they had in their hearts. A cool heart soon becomes a dead heart and a dead heart is always a cold one.
The cold, the fire and the stick of wood have dual significance in the poem. Literally, the cold outside is a harbinger of death, the fire is its antithesis and stands for possibility of life and the sticks they have is a resource to keep the fire burning. Symbolically, the cold within represents hatred and selfishness, the fire represents love and common good and the firewood they hold is symbolic of the prejudice they have against each other. They must let go their sticks of prejudice and let it burn in the fire of love and fellow feeling if they are to ward off the cold, a harbinger of death and keep the fire of life burning. However, because they cannot overcome the hatred and apathy (the cold within), they fail to let go their prejudice and everybody dies, holding their wood of prejudice.
The characters in the poem see the differences between them instead of the similarities. These assumed differences result in hatred of the other person thereby ensuring mutual destruction.
The poet urges all of us to examine the stick of wood that we have with us and throw it into the fire. Our mutual acknowledgement and appreciation of each other’s humanity, transcending the narrow confines of class, caste, creed and color is the only way humanity has can keep the fire burning. And with increasing polarization of modern society precisely along those fault lines, it might as well be our last chance to protect the dying fire.