Psychoanalytical Criticism Of Mending Walls

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.

Frost uses the phrase “Mending Wall” to show that the relationship between the narrator and the neighbor is not being repaired. The poem focuses on two men who meet amongst a wall to stroll and make repairs. The narrator feels that the wall shouldn’t be there. He states that, “...We do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard, my apples will never get across.(Frost) On the other hand, the neighbor feels that the wall is needed and simply states that, “

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 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.

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.

Robert Frost is an iconic poet in American literature today, and is seen as one of the most well known, popular, or respected twentieth century American poets. In his lifetime, Frost received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and the Congressional Gold Medal. However, Robert Frost’s life was not always full of fame and wealth; he had a very difficult life from the very beginning. At age 11, his father died of tuberculosis; fifteen years later, his mother died of cancer. Frost committed his younger sister to a mental hospital, and many years later, committed his own daughter to a mental hospital as well. Both Robert and his wife Elinor suffered from depression throughout their lives, but considering the premature deaths of three of their children and the suicide of another, both maintained sanity very well. (1)

In Robert Frost’s Mending Wall, a wall separates the (young) speaker and his (aged) neighbor. This wall needs fixing due to hunters and natural occurrences. They fix the wall in the Spring, and their hands get sore after handling all the rocks. The speaker thinks that the wall is unnecessary, but according to the neighbor, “good fences make good neighbors.” The speaker wonders why that is. What was the wall’s purpose? Is it to keep the cows at bay? The speaker says no, since there are no cows. He only other thing the wall separates is the pine tress and the apple orchards. The truth is, the neighbor is a man of tradition and old school rules, as we learn that this is the father of the neighbor’s saying.

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,

          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.

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.

In Frost’s poem ‘Mending Wall’, was written just months before World War I was declared. Also, political tensions between European countries were rising, it is through Frost’s poetry where intellectual discoveries are uncovered. The persona of the poem meets with his neighbour to fix a wall between their properties. “we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again”. Frost utilises elements of irony to convey how the only time the persona and the neighbour meet, which is to rebuild the wall; the wall that keeps them apart. The persona comes to the first physical discovery of the usefulness of the wall itself, “We do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard” which is metaphorical for the personalities of the two individuals presented. The neighbour, “all pine” is about practicality and being discrete whilst the persona is presented as

A second reading may be required for better understanding due to the length of the poem and the medium level of technicity. By the end, some minutes are provided to the student to immerse themselves in visual and vivid aspect of Frost’s poem. The teacher asks the students for their reaction. This should lead to the prominent item of the poem which is the ‘wall’ and the ‘fence’ and the way the poem consists of two contrasting ideas with ‘something there that doesn’t love a wall’ and ‘good fences make good neighbours’. In this respect, the class is divided into two groups with those who are for and against the contrasting ideas. Time is allocated for each group to find words/sentence in the poem which may support these ideas. Sentence such as ‘my apple tree will never get across’ can be used as arguments for ‘good fences make good friends’. Associative words identified during the warm up exercise can be used to back each group arguments. A small debate could be undertaken between the main representatives of each ideas with the teacher acting as moderator. This activity will contribute to the understating of the dual concepts and the nuances that exists in the

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” (Frost 27). What good neighbor says that? What makes that statement true? This ironic statement grabs the attention of many young readers. In (Mending Wall) by Robert Frost, two neighbors, every spring must go to the stone wall that separates them from each other. (The Interlopers) by Saki is about two rivals for decades who get trapped together, and then something remarkable and ironic happens, that changes what they think about each other. Frost writes how the two neighbors are building the wall back up and the narrator wonders why they have a wall anyway. Saki writes how years of hatred towards each other dissolves. Saki and Frost uses irony and characterization to convey a theme of relationships because relationships can change between two people, but only if both ends wants to change it.