Theme of the Poem The Cold Within
The poem shows that the whole human race is completly devoid of the feelings of love, sympathy and compassion. The people have reared the feelings of hatred, revenge and anger in their hearts. They are nourishing the feelings of differences which are based on colour, caste, creed and religion. Such feelings [ are wholly responsible to bring disaster or downfall. Such feelings can never develop an atmosphere of love, peace, brotherhood and neighbourhood.
They bring only violence, disputes and deaths. In the poem, the poet describes six people who are accidently caught together in bitter cold. As the people of the group belong to different backgrounds and religions, they have their own prejudices and because of having their prejudices, it becomes difficult for them to supply fuel in the dying fire with their own wooden sticks. Their feelings of discrimination bring to them utter disaster in the form of their deaths. Each one of the group is embraced by death not because of the cold outside but of the cold-heartedness within each. The cold-heartedness is also a kind of death.
Next the poet, in the poem, highlights the people’s life which is full of sins.Each one of us is afflicted with some kind of prejudice or sin which has been represented by the log of wood which each one of the group holds in his hand.
The most obvious sins are of spite, stinginess, greed, revenge, etc. The poet shows that the persons in the group were of course very unfortunate. They had , the sticks in their hands and they had also an opportunity to purify their souls by putting the stick into the fire and thus helping one another to save life. By doing so, they might have survived or might have gone to other world without the burden of their sins. But they preferred to die with their sins.
The poet refers to the fire that is dying and needs to be kept alive with the use of log. Metaphorically, it can be understood as the fire of compassion in their hearts which is dying.
Treasure Trove Poems and Short Stories Workbook Answers