Es gibt nur ein Berlin. There is only one Berlin. These words encapsulate the struggle to bring man together despite our diversity. Robert Frost, a poet, and Ronald Reagan, a president, both discuss walls that divide man in their works. They discuss separation, how walls physically and emotionally impact people, countries, and civilizations, and they do it with their own style and tone.
In both Robert Frost's and Ronald Reagan's works, they discuss the theme of separation. In Frost's poem, he mentions the two neighbors and how they "set the wall between us," He also writes about how the nature is attempting to bring the wall down and that the hunters "would have the rabbit out of hiding," suggesting that they tear rocks out of the wall to
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In Frost's poem, the wall between the neighbors emotionally impacts the narrator because he begins to think of his neighbor as an "old-stone savage," implying that because of the neighbor's desire to keep the wall the thinks of him to be old-fashioned. Frost also touches on the physical impact of repairing the wall with the line "We wear our fingers rough with handling them." In Reagan's speech, he talks of the physical impact on people with the statement "there remain armed guards and checkpoints," implying that if someone tries to cross the wall without permission they will be met with hostility. He also conveys the emotional impact of the wall on the Berliners stating that "to those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special word: Although I cannot be with you," implying that he along with all people of the West cannot reach those trapped in the East such as family and friends due to the wall. Reagan also remarks on the physical impact of the wall on the countries and civilizations of Europe with the statement that in the East "we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health," showing that since the East is cut off from the prosperity of the West it is struggling to sustain itself. While both Reagan and Frost discuss some of the same topics, they deliver it differently to their
In President Reagan’s speech regarding the Berlin wall entitled “Address at Brandenburg Gate” delivered on June 12th, 1987, Reagan takes the position as the rhetor with the sole purpose of convincing the city of Berlin to unite and get rid of the wall separating the city in two. The wall is described by Reagan multiple times and is described to be both a physical and non-physical wall. Most of the city is separated by the physical wall and those that aren’t are heavily guarded and prevent travel to the other side. The discourse was intended to not only be heard by the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, but by most of Europe and North America. The exigency in Reagan’s
In the speech “Tear Down this Wall”, the author, Peter Robinson a speechwriter for the White House, attempts to end the divide between East and West Berlin. Robinson wrote the speech; however, former President Ronald Reagan brought it to life when he delivered the speech in West Berlin in June of 1987. Reagan presented this speech in a calm yet persuasive manner, ultimately winning over his immediate Berlin audience. President Reagan’s speech did not just reach Berlin. It was broadcasted all over from Western Europe to North America resulting in Reagan’s tremendous contributions to ending the Cold War. In order to persuade his audience, Reagan uses various rhetorical tools such as suggestions of hope, liberty, and freedom to grab the alienated German forces and reunite the opposing sides.
People commonly imagine there being a heaven and a hell on earth and if one is a good person and fulfills their duties the gate to heaven will be opened to them, but if they took a turn for the worse hell would be upon them. Innocent, once free citizens of East Germany were coerced into a hell they had no way out of, severed from family relations on the other side of the wall. The East was afraid of change and controlling everything they could; while the West was free and overflowing with opportunities. Two distinctive places, yet still connected through their optimistic love that passes right through the wall. Not only did it connect those two countries, but nations all over including America. Ronald Reagan made it a point to address that they were strong, determined and faithful to the future progress of their country. It would have been easy for the Berliners to
Question: Lyndon Johnson is widely regarded as a symbol of postwar liberalism; Ronald Reagan, as a symbol of postwar conservatism. Compare and contrast their philosophies of government. What were the significant points of difference between the two? What were the significant points of agreement? Consider both domestic and foreign affairs.
On August 15, 1961, Communists began building a wall to keep Germans from escaping Communist-controlled East Berlin to West Democratic Berlin. There were guards, electric barbed wired fences, and of course the twelve foot concrete wall that prevented Germans from escaping. After the wall was built many Germans still tried to flee the west but not all were successful. The East Berlin Germans were now under total dictatorship of the Soviets. Many United States Presidents traveled to Berlin to share their views on democracy with the Communists, but the Communist weren’t persuaded. In 1987,
On November 9, 1989 the Berlin wall came crumbling down. For 28 years the wall did nothing but make everyone's life worse. However, when the wall fell everyone’s lives were about to be impacted for the better. Families were reunited, friends saw each other again, and peace was restored. The fall of the wall marked the winding down of the Cold War, and started a new age where communism would cease to exist. Much of the credit was being given to Ronald Reagan, who had visited the wall just a few years earlier. When Reagan gave his “Tear down this wall” speech, no one could’ve predicted, that it would lead to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and the eventual end of the cold war. Although as a result all communist governments in Eastern Europe had come to an end, would be replaced by “democratically elected governments”. With all this, there was a glimpse of peace and a time of rejoicing for all of the world. ("Fall of
Ronald Reagan, in his speech, (“Berlin Wall”, 1987), the former governor and President of the United States and at the time of the Cold War, “ the most magnetic public figure in the nation”(encyclopedia.com) elucidates to his audience the consequences of residing under the influence of the Soviet Union. Reagan supports his assertion through the use of various rhetorical devices to generate logos, ethos, and pathos. His purpose is to incite a feeling of an injustice done to the people of Berlin and Soviet Allies and to bring down the Berlin Wall as “the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War”(History.com) between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War. Reagan writes in perfervid tone generated toward the people of Berlin and other Soviet allies in hopes of bringing the Cold War to an end and it is reported by CBS News that he successfully “bolstered the morale of the pro-democracy movement in East Germany”(Brinkley).
The Berlin Wall had been in place for 26 years. Increasing unrest was occurring in Berlin, and at this crucial time Ronald Reagan, as several presidents had done before him, traveled to the Brandenburg Gate, seen by most as the symbolical center of the wall. On June 12, 1987, he then spoke of peace between the USSR and the Western world, while motivating Berliners to help take down the wall and come together as a nation once more. Throughout the speech “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate”, by Ronald Reagan, he makes use of imagery as well as appeals to ethos and pathos to incite the German people to rise up and destroy the Berlin Wall, reunifying Germany.
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.
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.
In Roberts, Mending Wall, he expresses the alienation within our society. This story was and is very controversial throughout history. Written in 1914, it became widely known for its connection with racism and segregation. In 1960, Frost was asked to read it for President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. In JFK’s inauguration speech, he declared, “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom”(Kennedy), which shows how he felt about segregation. This created a skirmish throughout the U.S., because this poem was so controversial. The poem, which was a memory when Frost was a young boy, consists of him walking the line. Walking the line means picking up rocks that had falling from the ice melting, recreating the fence between you and your neighbor. Frost suggests alienation in this story by using symbolism of the lines between African Americans and white folk. In the poem he asks the question, “Why do they make good neighbors”(line 30)? An interpretation of this line is that he is asking the question, ‘why do we have these lines between our people? There is no reasons to have these lines separating us?’. The poem suggests that we get into routines and then never break them because we have done them for generations. Frost challenges this, asking questions that are very hard to answer.
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.
However there is also a separation or segregation. In addition to the separation of the two men, Frost contrasts his “wall” of separation with the idea of segregation in our society. He uses this “wall” to display a separation between people in the current social climate. Lastly, there is the recurring idea that the wall should not be there. “We do not need the wall” This sentence implies that the wall separating us as people, needs to