Chapter 1: A Letter to God Dust of Snow Fire and Ice

There are multiple theories about how the world will ‘end’. Yes, I do believe that the world will end someday as we all know that every particular thing which begins also has an end to it. This holds true for the world too, that if the Sun got so hot and it bursts, the entire life on Earth would perish immediately as the planet would not be able to tolerate the intensity of heat. On the contrary, if the Sun grew colder and colder, it is obvious that life will come to an end without sunlight. We are aware of the fact that sunlight is a rich source of energy to all the planets in the solar system.

‘Fire’ stands for greed, avarice, lust, conflict and fury. ‘Ice’ stands for cruelty, intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference and hatred.

The rhyme scheme of the poem is: a, b, a, a, b, c, b, c, b.

This rhyme scheme helps in projecting the contrasting ideas of ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ that are presented in the poem. The poet Frost mentions both fire and ice as the probable ends of the planet Earth. He talks about how ‘fire’ represents desire and might be a possible cause of the end of the world. The poet also mentions ‘ice’ in the poem to symbolize the coldness and indifference that people might have towards one another, which will be a reason good enough to end the world. In the second stanza of the poem, the poet says that he knows enough about hate in this world and is sure that even destruction through hatred (ice) would be sufficient and adequate to bring about an end to the planet Earth.

You can download these NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English in PDF format through the links provided. Given below are some brief descriptions of the story and poems included under NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 1.

This story, written by G.L. Fuentes depicts a simple poor farmer named Lencho’s firm faith in God. Being an honest farmer, Lencho had hoped for a shower for a good harvest. However, his crops were destroyed due to a hailstorm and therefore, he wrote A letter to God seeking financial help of 100 pesos to sow his fields again and save his family from starvation. He placed his letter in a mailbox in town without an address. Upon seeing such a letter, the postmaster was deeply moved and decided to help the poor farmer so that his faith in God was not shaken.

Therefore, the postmaster contributed a decent amount himself and collected some money from his colleagues and friends and put it in the envelope. Soon Lencho visited the post office, the post office employees gave him the envelope containing money. When he opened the envelope, he was upset to find 70 pesos only, and he again wrote a letter to God criticizing the post office employees that they must have stolen the remaining 30 pesos from the envelope. This story is all about Lencho’s deep faith in the Almighty and how the post office employees helped him by collecting money anonymously in the name of God, to help him in his crisis.

In this poem, the poet Robert Frost writes about his experience of sitting under the hemlock tree as he is upset one day, since all isn’t going well in his life. However, his mood changes when the soft and cold snow touches him and he is filled with a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Students get to experience a variety of emotions while reading this poem as the poet presents a simple moment having a larger significance.

In this poem, Robert Frost the poet mentions the two different beliefs regarding the end of the world. He compares human desires to that of fire in nature and believes that the world will end in fire some day. He also believes that the world might also end in ice as there has been enough hate in the world that can destroy it.