Question

In “Heat,” which symbolic importance or meaning does the heat take on?

Answer 1

The heat represents a powerful force that changes the speaker’s world, and the speaker cannot escape from it.

Answer 2

The correct answer is “The heat represents a powerful force that changes the speaker’s world, and the speaker cannot escape from it”. In the poem “Heat” by Hilda Doolittle, the speaker wants the wind to cut the heat. The figurative meaning of these two symbols, the wind and the heat, could be understood as positive emotions/peace (the wind) and bad moments/sorrows (the heat). The heat described in the poem represents a powerful force full of sorrows and the speaker wants it to disappear, since not only the speaker cannot escape from it but also the nature (fruits cannot grow). In fact, in the first stanza the speaker expresses this feeling asking the wind to “kill” the heat (“rend it to tatters”).