Societal Barriers in Robert Frost's Poem The Mending Wall Essay

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.

“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 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.

Walls separate friends and family from being together and having fun. In Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" the narrator and neighbor don't abhor each other but the wall is stopping them from being good neighbors. Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" is about taking down a wall that separates a country into two countries. The walls of the two texts are

Robert Frost's "The Mending Wall" is a comment on the nature of our society. In this poem, Frost examines the way in which we interact with one another and how we function as a whole. For Frost, the world is often one of isolation. Man has difficulty communicating and relating to one another. As a result, we have a tendency to shut ourselves off from others. In the absence of effective communication, we play the foolish game of avoiding any meaningful contact with others in order to gain privacy.

?The Road Not Taken? (1916) tells of someone faced with two of life?s decisions however only one can be chosen. Whichever road is taken will be final and will determine the direction that their life takes. Frost drives this poem by a calm and collective narrative, spoken by the traveler of the diverged roads. Who is speaking with himself trying to convince himself of which road is the better choice. Frost wrote this poem using standard, modern language.

Similar to “Acquainted with the Night,” isolation is a major theme in “Mending Wall.” In “Mending Wall,” there are two characters: the speaker and the neighbor. The two characters have two different opinions on what make a “good neighbor.” The neighbor views walls as a crucial object in

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,

“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.

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.