A Literary Analysis Of Robert Frost's Mending Wall

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.

Walls are built in relationships, to keep people out of lives and protect from those who have been hurt. Walls are build and repairs for safety and to divide from the unknowns. Society has set and precedence that walls are necessary without reasoning and validation. In the poem the neighbor states “Good fences make good neighbors.” which would suggest that walls are necessary infect. The speaker doesn’t argue his lack of desire for the wall he just continues repairing it as if he has no objections. In society people might not want a wall or barrier however if your neighbor does then your objection are irrelevant. While in today’s society you don’t have to have a reason for a wall it’s your own right to have one they still exhibit how much society has changed over the years. “Frost's poem makes it clear that the saying is not the maxim of an isolationist policy, designed to avoid contact with the other and so preventing neighborliness” (Schwobel). 50 years ago walls weren’t a necessity they were a luxury, people walked to their neighbors and greeted them with open arms. Whether there is or isn’t a necessity for a wall or barrier in life though its personal freedoms but physically and mentally that allow people to maintain those walls that are

The use of conversation and the thoughts of the narrator reflect the poet's own thoughts. In line thirty to line thirty-five, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall. He has an open disposition and does not understand the need to “wall in” or “wall out” (line 33) anything or anyone.

“Mending Wall”, by Robert Frost, is a poem that tells the story of two neighbors with very different viewpoints, who are engaged in the keeping and repairing of a stone wall, an artificial barrier, between each of their properties year after year, even though there seems to be no good reason to continue doing so. The story of how the wall is mended every year is told from the perspective of “the speaker”, who compares his feelings about continuing to maintain this barrier, to the traditional attitude and behavior of “the neighbor”, who feels that the wall should remain because “good fences make good neighbors”. In the poem, the speaker questions why the two of them agree to meet at the wall each year, to walk the line, and to continue rebuilding the parts that have fallen or have been knocked down. The speaker points out that not only do the two neighbors have no animals to prevent crossing onto each others properties that might eat the other’s crops, but he states that even the forces of nature, the native wildlife, and even other people such as hunters, seem to show that maintaining the wall is useless and futile.

“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 “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.

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” and its parody by Kenneth Koch “Mending Sump” have a tightly wound connection of style, situation, and irony. Frost, being a man of simplicity when it comes to the writing of his poetry, narrates about boundaries and how necessary they are in any relationship. He criticizes his neighbor

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.

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

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.

“Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family”(Joseph Brodsky). “The Mending wall” was written in 1914 by Robert Frost. This tells the story of a town and the walls that the townspeople love to keep, and even when the walls fall the townspeople will always build them right back up. The narrator of this story seems to question these walls however, all anyone around him can reply to this is that good fences make good neighbors. The people of this town keep the walls because it is what their parents did, and what their parents before did, a tradition of sorts. This story leaves us the question of whether or not fences make good neighbors? In some sense maybe, they keep property lines, help to keep some order in our crazy worlds, and even to protect ourselves. However, I do not think that the fences make good neighbors, I think that these fences divide us and keep us from making connections with others. Although these walls may protect us, they separate us and in the end do not make good neighbors.

In Robert Frost’s narrative poem, “Mending Wall”, the first theme of reclusiveness is revealed through the frustration that the narrator has against the wall that keeps him and his neighbors apart. The poem tells of a story where two characters have a conflicting view of a stone wall that divides them, in which the narrator believes the wall is worthless and wants to tear down the wall but the neighbor adores the wall and insists on keep mending it whenever it crumbles. The wall that exists between them is also known to be fragile proving against the neighbor. Reasons like changes in climate and hunters removing stones for their hunting dogs are

“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,

          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.