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The cold within notes
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Summarising and explaining the poem The cold within.
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The cold withinJames patrick kenny
About the poet :
James Patrick Kinney (1923-1974) was an American Poet who was not read
much during his life time, but his poems were made popular by his son Timothy
Kinney as he took the efforts of publishing the poems of his father. The poem
"The Cold Within" was written in the 1960s.
Poem at a glance :
~Six people are trapped accidentally in cold weather.
~Each one of them has a stick.
~None of them is willing to give the stick to the fire which is about to die.
~The white woman thinks thatshe should not use herstick for the black man in
the group.
~The second man cannot find anyone from his own church and does not give
his stick.
~The third is a poor man and he holds grudge against the rich.
~The rich man thinks that he should not waste his stick to provide warmth to the
poor man.
~The black man thinks of taking revenge against the white man for the injustices
that has happened to his people in the past.
~The sixth man is a selfish man who cannot think beyond himself.
~Thus all the six people die not because of the cold outside, but because of the
lack of warmth for each other.
Summary:
"The Cold Within" is a poem which presents the cold hearts of mankind which
lead us to our doom and destruction. Mankind is thought to be better than the
animal world as we have created civilizations and we have progressed with
science and technology; but at the same time we have created discriminations
amongst ourselves at different levels which have led to our doom. Some of the
discriminatory cultural practices that we have established over the ages are based on
gender, religion, colour of the skin, etc. In the third last line of the poem, the
poet, James Patrick Kinney, describes these discriminatory practices as "proof of
human sin" which leads to death.
The six people who are trapped by chance when they were attacked by a cold-
wave could have saved themselves if they would have cooperated with each other
and would have shared their sticks to keep the fire alive. But each one of them
with his own biases against the others guarded their own stick more than their lives
and in the process all of them perished. It the coldness of heart towards other
people, the people belonging to other communities, which is the reason for the death
, Of these six people rather than the cold wave.
Justification of the title :
The title "The Cold Within" is justified as the title sums up the essence of the
poem. The poem deals with the "coldness" of the hearts of people who are
accidentally trapped in a situation of "bleak and bitter cold"; but none of the six
could get above their discriminatory sensibilities to keep the fire alive with their
respective sticks to fight the cold outside. Each of these six people was fighting
with two kinds of coldness one that is outside, the cold weather and second,
that's within them, the lack of warmth for people belonging to a different
community. It is this lack of warmth, this lack of fondness, the lack of trust in.
fellow human beings which is the cause of death of these six people. Therefore
the title "The Cold Within" is apt.
Paraphrasing and explanations :
STANZA 1
The first four lines of the poem provide a brief description of the situation in
which the six people are accidentally trapped in an unbearable cold wave and
where each of the six people has a stick along with them. The lines also evoke
suspense as to what these people are going to do with their sticks in "bleak and
bitter cold." The poet moreover points out that it is a popular story and the poet
takes the popular story for retelling in his poem as the story is being narrated.
STANZA 2
The six people have gathered round a fire to keep themselves safe and warm
from the cold wave; but the fire is about to die as it needs more logs of wood to
keep on burning. The first person looks at the fire and then to the six people
gathered around the fire and sees a black man and decides not to give her piece
of wood to the fire as she does not want to sav a black man from cold by her
piece of stick. The first person is obviously a white woman.
STANZA 3
The second person looks around and decides not to put his stick of wood into
the fire as he sees no one from his own community in the group of people. This
man is again discriminatory as he cares only for people belonging to his own
sector of Christianity.
STANZA 4
The third person belongs to the poorer sections of society and therefore has
his biases against the rich people. He, being poor, thinks that it is the rich people
who are lazy and who make the poor suffer for no reason and live at the cost of
the poor.
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