Indifferent Universe: A discussion of "Question" by Langston Hughes and "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Indifferent

Universe

A discussion of

“Question” by Langston Hughes

and

“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost.

By Debbie Barry

2 Debbie Barry

Published by:

Debbie Barry

2500 Mann Road, #248

Clarkston, Michigan 48346

USA

Copyright © 2013 by Deborah K. Barry.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

by any means without the written permission

of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1490355092

ISBN-10: 149035509X

Indifferent Universe 3

Originally submitted as a college

assignment:

Ashford University

ENG202: American Literature after

1865

Professor Michelle Furtado

September 26, 2011

4 Debbie Barry


Indifferent Universe

Robert Frost and Langston Hughes

express the indifference of the universe in

their poems about death and destruction

when Frost focuses on the dual dichotomies

of fire and ice and of desire and hate, while

Hughes focuses on the dichotomy of

wealthy whites and poor blacks. In “Fire

and Ice,” Frost expresses that fire or ice

would suffice equally to destroy the world,

and, in “Question,” Hughes refers to Death

as a junk man, who gathers the dead

indiscriminately. Destruction comes to

individuals, it comes to relationships, and it

comes to entire worlds, each in its turn; we

will examine how the universe is indifferent

to death and destruction in regard to the

individual, in regard to relationships, and in

regard to the eventual destruction of the

world.

6 Debbie Barry

Fire and ice are elemental opposites.

Fire cannot exist when it is surrounded by

ice. Neither can ice exit in the midst of fire.

Neither fire nor ice contributes anything of

value to the other; each substance cancels

out and destroys the other substance. Frost

brings these two antagonistic elements

together to demonstrate that it is not

important how destruction is accomplished;

the inevitability of death, destruction, and

loss, and the indifference of the universe to

that inevitability, are the things that matter.

Frost begins “Fire and Ice”: “Some

say the world will end in fire, / Some say in

ice” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p. 1609).

Frost’s personal world ends time and time

again during a life marked by tragedy:

"[Frost’s] father ... died early; his sister in a

hospital for the insane ... his first born dying

in infancy, the second in young manhood by

his own hand ... his wife ... left him in death

... his daughter Lesley ... wouldn't take him

in" (Fraser, 1998, p. 47). The ice of death is


a common theme in Frost’s life, as he loses

one loved-one after another. Death is cold

and indifferent in its finality. The fire of

betrayal is also a common theme, as a young

boy undoubtedly feels betrayed by the father

who dies too young and by the sister whose

mental illness brings shame to her family

and as a man is betrayed by the daughter

who abandons her father in the time of

trouble. Betrayal burns through the heart

with indifference for the life that it destroys.

Ice and fire destroy Frost’s personal world

time after time.

The indifference of the universe is

embodied in the words, “And would suffice”

(McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p.1609).

Sufficiency is neither great nor terrible. Ice

would suffice for the destruction of the

world just as fire would suffice to

accomplish the same result. The universe

does not care how the world will end; it is

not relevant to any supreme plan for the

world to end in one way or in another way.

8 Debbie Barry

It is merely inevitable that the world will be

destroyed in some way in the course of time.

Just as the indifferent heat of fire destroys

ice by melting it into a puddle, so the world

will inevitably end. Just as the indifferently

suffocating cold of ice destroys fire by

freezing away the heat that is needed for the

fire to continue to burn, so is the destruction

of the world unavoidable. The agent of

destruction is irrelevant to the universe;

death and destruction will inexorably come

to the world eventually.

In showing that death and

destruction are inevitable, Frost reminds the

reader that life will end in death. Death is

inevitable. Whether life ends in cold and

lonely emptiness, as by ice, or whether life

ends in a dramatic conflagration, as by fire,

it is inevitable that each life will end. As the

universe is indifferent to the destruction of a

whole world, even more so is the universe

indifferent to the death of any person. Life


may end in fire, or life may end in life, but

life will end.

Frost writes: “From what I’ve tasted

of desire … [and] I think I know enough of

hate” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p.

1609). It is important to notice that Frost’s

dichotomy is between desire and hate, not

between the usual opposites of love and

hate. Frost equates desire with consuming

fire and with raging infernos that are capable

of destroying the world. He equates hate

with freezing ice that is likewise capable of

destroying the world. He does not suggest

that love is hate’s opposite, or that love has

anything to do with death and destruction.

Instead, he sets desire as hate’s opposite.

"[A] great deal of Frost's poetry

deals with human limitations and with the

tragedy of the human condition" (Durham,

1969, p. 61). Desire and hate are human

limitations, and they are both involved in the

tragedy of the human condition. Desire is a

carnal force, not an emotion, and it has the

10 Debbie Barry

power to blind individuals to the real

possibilities in interpersonal relationships.

Desire is superficial to relationships, and it

is a transient force in life. If desire is devoid

of love, or if it is lacking sufficient love,

then desire can destroy a relationship.

Desire is able to tear a relationship apart,

leaving the individuals empty and broken.

Conversely, hate is one of the strongest

emotions in existence. It has the power to

bind people together in relationships of

destruction. Hate is a perversion of love,

and hate freezes the life out of a heart as

surely as ice freezes the last leaves of

autumn, sucking the life from the heart and

leaving emotional death and destruction in

the wake of the hate.

Either desire or hate will serve with

equal efficacy to destroy a relationship, and

the universe is indifferent in regard to which

condition ultimately causes the destruction.

Contemporary relationships are less relevant

than earlier relationships, and they often


lack substance as the post-war generation

finds itself “devoid of faith and alienated

from a civilization they [feel] no longer

[makes] any sense” (McMichael & Leonard,

2011, p.1561). Relationships are fleeting,

and as the participants find themselves

alleviated from society, so do they cling to

desire and to hate alike to form the bases of

their relationships. Contemporary

relationships, in the same manner as the

world in Frost’s poem, even experience

destruction twice in many cases: first, the

relationships are destroyed by the flames of

desire, which consume the participants in

the relationship, but which are unable to

leave a foundation of love and trust behind

on their own because desire is too shallow to

contain love and trust. Second, the

relationships are destroyed by the ice of

hatred, which freezes the heart, leaving no

place for love and forgiveness to abide.

The relationship that is destroyed by

the ice of hate resembles Hughes’ “suck of

12 Debbie Barry

oblivion” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011,

p.1866). Each is an indifferent void,

consuming everyone without regard for

whom or what is destroyed in the process.

The difference between hate and oblivion is

that hate remembers every detail of that

which is hated, and it destroys the hater

continuously, while oblivion forgets what is

destroyed and why and how the destruction

was accomplished. It makes no great

difference in eternity whether destruction

comes with the long memory of hatred or

with the complete forgetfulness of oblivion,

since everything is always destroyed, and all

destruction is equal.

"Hughes' poetry ... reflects so much

of his own life. It poignantly relates his own

personal experiences with racism, poverty,

and loneliness ... in Kansas, where he spent

most of his childhood" (Scott, 1981, p. 1).

Hughes’ “Question” explores the dichotomy

of wealthy whites and poor blacks in the

persons of “a white multi-millionaire …


[and] A Negro cotton-picker” (McMichael

& Leonard, 2011, p. 1866). Despite the fact

that Hughes is writing almost sixty years

after Reconstruction, there is still a vast

difference in American society between

blacks and whites. His is a time in which

“racial and other sorts of bigotry [are] on the

rise, even including the reemergence of the

Ku Klux Klan” (McMichael & Leonard,

2011, p.1561). Hughes wonders which man

Death will find “Worth more pennies of

eternity” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011,

p.1866). The question is multifaceted, as it

considers race, it considers economic status,

and it considers the lifestyle of each man. Is

the white man more valuable than is the

black man when Death collects their bodies?

The universe is indifferent to the color of a

person’s skin, of a person’s hair, or of a

person’s eyes, as each body rots away to

dust just as well as each other body. Is the

rich man more valuable to eternity than is

the poor man? The universe is indifferent to

14 Debbie Barry

economic wealth, as there is no use for

money or material goods in eternity. Is the

multi-millionaire – who may or may not

have worked hard at manual labor in his life,

or who may or may not have lived off the

toil of others – more valuable than the man

who picked cotton in the fields all of his

life? The universe is indifferent to the deeds

and occupations of men, whose lives are not

long enough to register as specks on the

timeline of eternity. Death does not care

about the differences among the dead, nor

even does Death notice the differences,

because they are all equal in death. The

universe is indifferent to kings and to

peasants, to tyrants and to slaves, and to the

color of any person’s skin.

Langston Hughes’ “Question” and

Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” both describe

the indifference of the universe toward

mankind and toward the world. Frost

expresses that either fire or ice would suffice

equally to destroy the world, and Hughes


refers to Death as a junk man who

indiscriminately gathers the dead. The three

dichotomies – of fire and ice, of desire and

hate, and of wealthy whites and poor blacks

– all illustrate the vast indifference of

everything in the face of the inevitability of

death and destruction.

Hughes writes: “When the old junk

man Death/ Comes to gather up our bodies/

And toss them into the suck of oblivion”

(McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p. 1866).

Death is portrayed as a junk man, or as a

rubbish collector. Death is not collecting

anything of value; he is only collecting the

bodies of the dead, which are destined to

decompose, and which are of no further use

to anyone. He does not identify the bodies

as he gathers them up. He does not extol the

virtues and the accomplishments of their

lives. He does not denounce their failings,

or the evils that they have done. He does

not even place them in his cart with any

degree of care. Death is indifferent to

16 Debbie Barry

everything that is valued in life. Death

comes to each of us in turn as casually as the

trash collector picks up the litter that is

scattered carelessly along the roadside.

Death is even more indifferent to the bodies

that he collects than is the trash collector to

the detritus that he gathers, who may care

enough about some trinket to pocket it and

save it along the way; Death throws each of

the dead “into the suck of oblivion”

(McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p. 1866),

saving none from destruction.

Frost writes: “I hold with those who

favor fire … for destruction ice/ Is also

great/ And would suffice” (McMichael &

Leonard, 2011, p. 1609). Just as the

universe in Hughes’ poem is indifferent to

who is destroyed, so the universe in Frost’s

poem is indifferent to the manner of

destruction. In death and destruction,

everyone and everything is equal. Death is

the end that cannot be avoided. Destruction

is the destiny that is always certain.


Whether it is a single life that is destroyed in

death, or whether it is an entire world that is

destroyed by a cataclysm, the universe is too

big and too distant to so much as notice the

loss, much less to care that the world is

gone. The junk man clears away the debris,

and all that was destroyed by whatever

means is equally forgotten in oblivion.

The universe lacks the passion to

care whether the world is destroyed by fire

or by ice. It lacks the passion to care

whether death comes to a white man or to a

black man. “The bittersweet tone and view

of life reflected in Hughes’s perspective …

is consistently mirrored in his poems”

(DiYanni, 2008, pp. 701-702). “What really

disturbs Frost is the absence of intense

feelings” (Durham, 1969, p. 71). Both Frost

and Hughes write about the lack of feeling

in the universe. Hughes’ treatment of the

subject reflects the bitterness of an African

American in Post-Reconstruction America.

He is free, but his people continue to live

18 Debbie Barry

and work in much the same way as did their

forbearers, under the oppression of white

society. He sees the universe as being

indifferent to the history of the African

American, to his plight, and to his future

fate. Frost’s treatment of the subject reflects

the pain of a life marked by loss after loss.

He has lost his father, his sister, his children,

and his wife. He sees the universe as

indifferent to his personal suffering. He sees

that his life is irrelevant in a world that is

vastly insignificant to the universe.

In “Fire and Ice” and in “Question,”

Robert Frost and Langston Hughes express

the indifference of the universe toward

human suffering, toward death, and toward

destruction by exploring the dichotomies of

fire and ice, of desire and hate, and of

wealthy whites and poor blacks. Frost

expresses the passionless, equal sufficiency

of fire and of ice for the destruction of the

world, while Hughes expresses the equality

that unites all men in death, through his


portrayal of Death as an indiscriminate junk

man. Sufficiency is an unemotional,

passionless, indifferent state, which

expresses no preference for one mode of

destruction over another mode of

destruction; any agent of destruction will

serve equally well to accomplish

destruction. No individual life is spared the

destruction of death and loss, if only that

individual’s own final demise. No

relationship is spared the destructive forces

of desire and of hate, whether within the

relationship, or battering the relationship

from the outside. Even the apparently

timeless, permanent world on which we

reside has not been spared the destruction of

fire from volcanoes, from crashing meteors,

and from war; and of ice from creeping

glaciers. It will not be spared its final

destruction in the fullness of time, whether

by fire from the death of the sun, or from the

final destruction in human technology and

warfare; or by ice as the earth’s internal fires

20 Debbie Barry

burn out and the world succumbs to the

endless cold of space. Destruction will

come, and the universe will neither notice

nor care that our world is gone. Individual

bodies, dead at the end of our short,

irrelevant lives, will be gathered

indiscriminately by the indifference of

Death, making us all equal in the end,

regardless of who we were in life.

Frost and Hughes express great

bitterness and desolation in their poems,

which I do not share. I do not believe that

the universe is indifferent to the fate of the

humblest creature, much less that the

universe is indifferent to the destruction of a

world. I do believe that they are both right

in believing that death is inevitable, and that

it does not discriminate between the white

man and the black man, between the rich

man and the poor man, between man and

woman, or in any other way; death is the

great equalizer, regardless of how death

comes, or to whom. Will the “white multi-


millionaire … [or the] Negro cotton-picker”

(McMichael & Leonard, 2011, p.1866) have

more value in eternity? They will be equal,

as they should have been equal in life.

22 Debbie Barry

References

DiYanni, R. (2008). Literature: Approaches

to fiction, poetry, and drama (2nd

ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

Durham, J.M. (1969). Robert Frost: A bleak,

darkly realistic poet. Revista de

Letras, 12, 59-89. Retrieved

September 4, 2011, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2766608

4

Fraser, R. (1998). Frost in the waste land.

The Sewanee Review, 106(1), 46-67.

Retrieved September 12, 2011, from


2

McMichael, G. & Leonard, J. S. (2011).

Concise anthology of American

literature. (Eds.). New York, NY:

Pearson Education, Inc.

Scott, M. (1981). Langston Hughes of

Kansas. The Journal of Negro






History, 66(1), 1-9. Retrieved September 12,

2011, from


24 Debbie Barry

Debbie Barry and

her husband live in

southeastern

Michigan with their

two sons and their

two cats. The

family enjoys

exploring history through French and Indian

War re-enactment and through medieval re-

enactment in the Society for Creative

Anachronism (SCA). Debbie grew up in

Vermont, where she heard and collected

many family stories that she enjoys retelling

as historical fiction for young audiences.

Debbie graduated summa cum laude

with a B.A. in dual majors of social sciences

with an education concentration and of

English in 2013.


Also look for these titles by Debbie Barry:

Books for Young Learners:

Around the Color Wheel

Colors and Numbers

Stories for Children:

Bobcat in the Pantry

Born in the Blizzard and Freshet

Expressing the Trunk

Gramp’s Bear Story

When Mary Fell Down the Well

Writing Competition

History and Genealogy:

Family History of Deborah K.

Fletcher

Grandma Fletcher’s Scrapbooks

Nana’s Stories

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families, 2nd Edition

with Digital Scans

The Red Notebook

26 Debbie Barry

The Red Notebook, 2nd Edition with

Digital Scans

Zoa Has Her Way

Zoa Fletcher’s Photos

Other Topics:

Debbie’s Writing

More Than Just Monogamy

Nature in Early American Literature

The Heart’s Vision

The Heart’s Vision in Color

Debbie’s Vision in Art, Volumes 1-4

A Journey Through My College

Papers: Undergraduate Series