An Analysis Of Robert Frost's Mending Wall

In “Mending Wall”, two neighbors are ironically united by the traditional rebuilding of the wall between them. A wall symbolizes boundaries, orders, and separation. Or does it? One of the two neighbors doesn’t seem to think so. “Good fences make good neighbors” is his motto. (Line 26) The neighbor doesn’t see how ironic it is that the wall is a meeting spot. He uses the wall as an excuse to talk with his neighbor, because he is not very open or conversational. The situational irony ostended by Robert Frost is that the wall between the two clashing neighbors is supposed to separate them. However, each year, when they meet to “walk the line”, the wall serves as a meeting spot for the two to catch up. (Line 12) Dividing, but unifying, Frost uses the wall to symbolize unity amongst clashing people. Without the situational irony of repairing the wall, the two incompatible neighbors would unlikely be able to unite.

Think about the poems “We Real Cool” and “Invictus.” How are the moods similar? How are the endings different? Answer:

Building physical and emotional walls has a negative impact on the people, countries, and civilizations they divide. In the case of Frost's poem, the wall took away the narrator's voice. The narrator disliked the wall, but was too timid to speak up for what he believes in. His neighbor says "good walls make good neighbors," but the narrator felt as if the wall should be torn down, and they should unite

Frost’s various speaking tones can be shown in his well-known poem “Mending Wall.” Throughout the poem the speaker’s voice is open and relaxed, yet, inward and musing. It helps welcome the reader and at the time entices the reader into a riddle which becomes essential to the poem’s meaning. The speaker’s eventual speculation about what might not “love a wall” becomes a description of the struggle of wall-mending and begins to wonder why he and his neighbor have met to carry out the task in the first place. The speaker’s range of tone throughout the poem varies from seriousness to fantasy to glee.

In his poem 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost presents to us the thoughts of barriers linking people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers. His messages are conveyed using poetic techniques such as imagery, structure and humor, revealing a complex side of the poem as well as achieving an overall light-hearted effect. Robert Frost has cleverly intertwined both a literal and metaphoric meaning into the poem, using the mending of a tangible wall as a symbolic representation of the barriers that separate the neighbors in their friendship.

However, when the responders’ delves deeper into the poem, it is clear that at a allegorical level the wall is a metaphor representing the barrier that exists in the neighbours’ friendship. The first eleven lines of the poem if rife with imagery that describes the dilapidation of the wall. The first line of the poem emphasises that “something” exists that “doesn’t love a wall”. This personification makes the “something” seem human-like. The use of words such as “spills” and “makes gaps” convey an image of animate actions and create a vivid impression of the degradation of the wall. Nature, presented in the form of cold weather, frost and the activities of creatures, also seeks to destroy the wall. The idea that walls are unnatural and therefore nature abhors walls is portrayed in the phrase “makes gaps even two can pass abreast”, which metaphorically indicates that nature desires for man to walk side by side with no barrier between them. When the two meet to fix the wall, it is a metaphor that could be interpreted as the two repairing their friendship as “To each the boulders have fallen to each” which shows that faults in their relationship lie on behalf of them both. While they are mending the wall, a light-hearted tone is established. This is shown through the inclusion of the metaphor “spring is mischief in me” which shows the neighbours having fun together in repairing the wall,

Robert Frost is describing a process in "Mending Wall", which is repairing a wall that separates his territory and his neighbor's. The wall was deteriorated during the winter, when the cold frost created cracks and gaps in the wall. He uses a nearly infantile imagination to unravel the mystery of the damage that appeared suddenly in spring. While they are tediously laboring to reconstruct the fence, Frost is imploring his neighbor about the use of the wall; his apple trees can be clearly distinguished from his neighbor's pine trees. Yet underneath this quotidian routine, Frost goes beyond the surface to reveal its figurative meaning.

Should traditions that seem to have no use in the modern day be done away with? The speaker in “Mending Wall” thinks so. While many traditions are good, the poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost suggests, that we should question them every once in awhile. In the poem, Robert Frost, describes how two neighbors repair a stone wall every spring. The speaker, the neighbor whose thoughts we have insight to, calls into question why the wall is being built and for what reason must there be a wall. However his neighbor's response is “Good walls make good neighbours”. The speaker is a hypocrite because he accuses the neighbor of being set in tradition but he himself tells the reader that he mends the wall on his own spare time. The reader comes to the conclusion that the wall is a symbol for questioning traditions. Robert Frost’s use of allegory, symbolism, and imagery help us get to that conclusion.

The analysis of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost has been up for debate since the poem release in 1916. It is known to be one of the most frequently misinterpreted poems of all time, and even Robert Frost himself has said the poem is “tricky” to comprehend (The). When analyzing this poem many readers tend to focus only on the last lines of the poem and get caught in a trap of selective-interpretation. Quite a few people after reading Robert Frost’s poem firmly conclude that this poem is about non-conformity and individualism, however, that is not the case. Robert Frost’s poem is meant to be analyzed line by line for a complete interpretation. Readers can conclude that the poem represents making choices in life, but that is not the

While the narrator seems more willing to reach out to his neighbor, in the end, he does not. He does wonder why fences supposedly make good neighbors. For him, the question is what is he "walling in or walling out"? He seems to realize that he is "walling out" other people. As long as the symbolic wall stands between the neighbors, they will always be separated. Earlier in the poem, Frost uses the symbolism of a rabbit to seemingly reinforce this point. The hunters must destroy the wall in order to "have the rabbit out of hiding". The men, in turn must break down the walls between them if they are to come out of "hiding". The narrator seems to have a desire to point this out to his neighbor. However, he does not, simply dismissing his idea as "the mischief" that spring has instilled in him. He realizes that he is unable to communicate with his neighbor in any meaningful fashion and, thus, remains in isolation from him.

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, the fifty-six line lyric poem gives off a sarcastic tone that expresses impatience with his neighbor and the “wall.” The poem focuses on a theme of separation, the necessity of boundaries and the illusory arguments used to annihilate them.

          In the poem, “The Mending Wall” Frost creates a lot of ambiguity in order to leave the poem open for interpretation. Frost’s description of every detail in this poem is very interesting, it leaves the reader to decide for themselves what deductions they are to be making of the poem. To begin with, Frost makes literal implications about what the two men are doing. For instance, they are physically putting the stones back, one by one. Their commitment and constant drive shows how persistent these men seem about keeping the wall intact. On the other hand, there are inferences that something deeper is occurring.

“The parallel plots of a novel… would act in the reader's mind and perhaps the author's as a kind of splitting” (Holland). Frost meant the wall to embody the physical and psychological boundaries people set up to maintain their privacy. The narrator tone for most of the poem is ironic, because he expresses his desire to rid himself of the wall “There where it is we do not need the wall” (Frost 245), but he repairs it nonetheless, “I have come after them and made repair” (Frost 245). Frost introduces the reader with different causes for the recurring destruction of the wall. The narrator’s first possible cause is nature, but does Frost means a force of nature? His choice of words where “Frozen-ground-swell” (Frost 245), which is another way of saying Frost. The poet might be indicating that in actuality he is the one that want the wall destroyed. The second possible reason for the wall’s destruction is the hunters. The narrator constantly expresses his dislike of the wall, but is quick to reprimand anyone who destroys it; in this case the hunters. The narrator’s act of patching the wall when damaged, is a clear sign that he yearns for a psychological to distance him from the neighbor. This ironic tone continues throughout the poem, but it is never completely clear it the speaker wants the wall removed for good, or keep it as it is. The neighbor on the other hand,