Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across 25
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it 30
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, 35
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 40
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.” 45

An Analysis of Robert Frost's Mending Wall
Mending Wall, by Robert Frost portrays the routines of two neighbors who are constantly mending the fence, or wall, that separates their properties. If a stone is missing from the fence, you can bet that the two men are out there putting it back together piece by piece.

Frost's description of every detail in this poem is quite interesting, very pleasant to read, and extremely imaginable. He leaves the reader to decide for himself what deductions he is to make from the reading. On one hand, Frost makes literal implications about what the two men are doing. For instance, they are physically putting the stones back, one by one. Their dedication, commitment, and constant drive shines through when reading how persistence these men seem about keeping the wall intact. Quite the contrary however, is the inferences that something even deeper is going on. There is a sharing experience taking place here. Indeed, by laboring so hard, each man is experiencing physical repercussions, but they are also using this time as a "meet and greet" period.

We can gather from the beginning of the poem that the wall has many forces that keep's it in shambles. For instance, Frost writes;
"...that sends the frozen ground swell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun...", and "I have come after them (hunters) and made repair where they have left not one stone on a stone..."

The man and his neighbor don't seem to have time for anything else, for it sounds as if they are constantly making repairs. Is there a reason for this?
It is important to note that not only are these men completing a manly task, but they are also "building" some type of relationship. If this were not an issue, the neighbor would not repeat;
"Good fences make good neighbors."

As the man tells his story, we find that even though the two men may be conversing and interacting, there is some distance between them at all times. The man says;
"...on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again."
It seems to show that even though there is a need for friendship in each of us; it is equally as necessary for us to have our own space.
As the poem continues we see that what is taking place is almost like a game. In fact, he says;
"Oh, just another kind of outdoor game." And the narrator continues by saying, "We keep the wall between us as we go". This is almost like there is this game of leapfrog taking place!
"He is all pine and I am apple orchard,"
This seems to indicate that each of us is different. Having different likes, dislikes, etc. One of the men farms "apples", while the other just has "pines". Nonetheless, each is special and both of them contain separate, yet endearing qualities.
Now let's reflect on Frost's use of the "stone" itself. What could he have meant by this poem?
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned".
He is speaking to the stones. In other words he is telling them that if they are going to fall, please wait until he is not looking. This seems to be an odd touch to this poem. It almost appears that the man is so bored at times that he would talk about or to anything. Maybe the neighbor is not as much of a talker as one might have imagined. Maybe the man only has himself and these inanimate objects to converse with. After all, the only quote by the neighbor in this poem is;
"Good fences make good neighbors."
In another light however, there is the idea of separation, or segregation. I have briefly touched on the idea that the two men are consistently kept apart by this wall. In addition though, the author contrasts his "wall" of separation with the idea of segregation in our world. We are left with the impression that if two people have differences, no matter the extent, they are not considered equals by society.
Finally, there is the recurring idea that the wall should not be there in the first place.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall."
This sentence infers that the wall separating us as a people needs to come down. It is virtually impossible for us to build lasting relationships while we are still possessed with hatred and discrimination.
Sources
www.123helpme.com-24.09.2010
Summary
A stone wall separates the speaker’s property from his neighbor’s. In spring, the two meet to walk the wall and jointly make repairs. The speaker sees no reason for the wall to be kept—there are no cows to be contained, just apple and pine trees. He does not believe in walls for the sake of walls. The neighbor resorts to an old adage: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The speaker remains unconvinced and mischievously presses the neighbor to look beyond the old-fashioned folly of such reasoning. His neighbor will not be swayed. The speaker envisions his neighbor as a holdover from a justifiably outmoded era, a living example of a dark-age mentality. But the neighbor simply repeats the adage.
Form
Blank verse is the baseline meter of this poem, but few of the lines march along in blank verse’s characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. Frost maintains five stressed syllables per line, but he varies the feet extensively to sustain the natural speech-like quality of the verse. There are no stanza breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, but many of the end-words share an assonance (e.g., wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing,stone, mean, line, and again or game, them, and him twice). Internal rhymes, too, are subtle, slanted, and conceivably coincidental. The vocabulary is all of a piece—no fancy words, all short (only one word, another, is of three syllables), all conversational—and this is perhaps why the words resonate so consummately with each other in sound and feel.
Commentary
I have a friend who, as a young girl, had to memorize this poem as punishment for some now-forgotten misbehavior. Forced memorization is never pleasant; still, this is a fine poem for recital. “Mending Wall” is sonorous, homey, wry—arch, even—yet serene; it is steeped in levels of meaning implied by its well-wrought metaphoric suggestions. These implications inspire numerous interpretations and make definitive readings suspect. Here are but a few things to think about as you reread the poem.
The image at the heart of “Mending Wall” is arresting: two men meeting on terms of civility and neighborliness to build a barrier between them. They do so out of tradition, out of habit. Yet the very earth conspires against them and makes their task Sisyphean. Sisyphus, you may recall, is the figure in Greek mythology condemned perpetually to push a boulder up a hill, only to have the boulder roll down again. These men push boulders back on top of the wall; yet just as inevitably, whether at the hand of hunters or sprites, or the frost and thaw of nature’s invisible hand, the boulders tumble down again. Still, the neighbors persist. The poem, thus, seems to meditate conventionally on three grand themes: barrier-building (segregation, in the broadest sense of the word), the doomed nature of this enterprise, and our persistence in this activity regardless.
But, as we so often see when we look closely at Frost’s best poems, what begins in folksy straightforwardness ends in complex ambiguity. The speaker would have us believe that there are two types of people: those who stubbornly insist on building superfluous walls (with clichés as their justification) and those who would dispense with this practice—wall-builders and wall-breakers. But are these impulses so easily separable? And what does the poem really say about the necessity of boundaries?
The speaker may scorn his neighbor’s obstinate wall-building, may observe the activity with humorous detachment, but he himself goes to the wall at all times of the year to mend the damage done by hunters; it is the speaker who contacts the neighbor at wall-mending time to set the annual appointment. Which person, then, is the real wall-builder? The speaker says he sees no need for a wall here, but this implies that there may be a need for a wall elsewhere— “where there are cows,” for example. Yet the speaker must derive something, some use, some satisfaction, out of the exercise of wall-building, or why would he initiate it here? There is something in him that does love a wall, or at least the act of making a wall.
This wall-building act seems ancient, for it is described in ritual terms. It involves “spells” to counteract the “elves,” and the neighbor appears a Stone-Age savage while he hoists and transports a boulder. Well, wall-building is ancient and enduring—the building of the first walls, both literal and figurative, marked the very foundation of society. Unless you are an absolute anarchist and do not mind livestock munching your lettuce, you probably recognize the need for literal boundaries. Figuratively, rules and laws are walls; justice is the process of wall-mending. The ritual of wall maintenance highlights the dual and complementary nature of human society: The rights of the individual (property boundaries, proper boundaries) are affirmed through the affirmation of other individuals’ rights. And it demonstrates another benefit of community; for this communal act, this civic “game,” offers a good excuse for the speaker to interact with his neighbor. Wall-building is social, both in the sense of “societal” and “sociable.” What seems an act of anti-social self-confinement can, thus, ironically, be interpreted as a great social gesture? Perhaps the speaker does believe that good fences make good neighbors— for again, it is hewho initiate the wall-mending.
Of course, a little bit of mutual trust, communication, and goodwill would seem to achieve the same purpose between well-disposed neighbors—at least where there are no cows. And the poem says it twice: “something there is that does not love a wall.” There is some intent and value in wall-breaking, and there is some powerful tendency toward this destruction. Can it be simply that wall-breaking creates the conditions that facilitate wall-building? Are the groundswells a call to community- building—nature’s nudge toward concerted action? Or are they benevolent forces urging the demolition of traditional, small-minded boundaries? The poem does not resolve this question, and the narrator, who speaks for the groundswells but acts as a fence-builder, remains a contradiction.
Many of Frost’s poems can be reasonably interpreted as commenting on the creative process; “Mending Wall” is no exception. On the basic level, we can find here a discussion of the construction-disruption duality of creativity. Creation is a positive act—a mending or a building. Even the most destructive-seeming creativity results in a change, the building of some new state of being: If you tear down an edifice, you create a new view for the folks living in the house across the way. Yet creation is also disruptive: If nothing else, it disrupts the status quo. Stated another way, disruption is creative: It is the impetus that leads directly, mysteriously (as with the groundswells), to creation. Does the stone wall embody this duality? In any case, there is something about “walking the line”—and building it, mending it, balancing each stone with equal parts skill and spell—that evokes the mysterious and laborious act of making poetry.
On a level more specific to the author, the question of boundaries and their worth is directly applicable to Frost’s poetry. Barriers confine, but for some people they also encourage freedom and productivity by offering challenging frameworks within which to work. On principle, Frost did not write free verse. His creative process involved engaging poetic form (the rules, tradition, and boundaries—the walls—of the poetic world) and making it distinctly his own. By maintaining the tradition of formal poetry in unique ways, he was simultaneously a mender and breaker of walls.

Sources
www.sparknotes.com-24.09.2010




Analysis of Mending Wall

In his poem, 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost presents to us the ideas of barriers between people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers. His messages are conveyed using poetic techniques such as imagery, structure and humour, 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 neighbours in their friendship.

The theme of the poem is about two neighbours who disagree over the need of a wall to separate their properties. Not only does the wall act as a divider in separating estates, it also acts as a barrier in the neighbours' friendship, separating them. For the neighbour with the pine trees, the wall is of great significance, as it provides a sense of security and privacy. He believes that although two people can still be friendly neighbours, some form of barrier is needed to separate them and 'wall in' the personal space and privacy of the individual. This is shown through his repeated saying, 'good fences make good neighbours' (line 27). The neighbour's property is a representation of his privacy and the wall acts as a barrier against intrusion.

The poem itself is a technique Robert Frost uses to convey his ideas. Behind the literal representation of building walls, there is a deeper metaphoric meaning, which reflects people's attitudes towards others. It reflects the social barriers people build, to provide a sense of personal security and comfort, in the belief that barriers are a source of protection which will make people less vulnerable to their fears. Robert Frost's ideas are communicated strongly through the perspective of the narrator in the poem, the 'I' voice, who questions the need for barriers. 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' anything or anyone.

One of the poetic techniques ,that Robert Frost uses in 'Mending Wall' to convey his ideas is imagery. In the first eleven lines of the poem, it is used to describe the degradation of the wall, creating a visual image for the reader. The sentence structure of the first line of the poem places emphasis on 'something'. This, compound with the use of personification, makes 'something' appear alive and even human-like. Animate qualities have been given to 'something' through the use of the words 'love', 'sends', 'spills' and 'makes gaps' (lines 1-4), illustrating a vivid impression of the degradation of the wall. Nature, in the form of cold weather, frost and the activities of small creatures, gradually destroys the wall. The narrator seems to believe that walls are unnatural and suggests that nature dislikes walls. This is portrayed through the phrase 'sends the frozen ground swell under it' (line 2). The poem describes nature making holes in the wall large enough that 'even two can pass abreast'. Literally, this refers to the size of the holes. However, it can also be interpreted that nature wishes the men to 'walk together', side by side, living in harmony where there is no barrier in their friendship that separates them.

Figurative expressions are used in 'Mending Wall' to describe the relationship between the neighbours. Many phrases contain both a literal and metaphoric meaning. For example, the phrases 'to walk the line' and 'set the wall between us' (lines 13,14) refers to the building of a tangible wall that marks the boundary of the neighbours' properties. These phrases are also figurative and represent the setting of a barrier in the neighbours' friendship. When they meet to repair the wall, it could be metaphorically interpreted as repairing their friendship and resolving disputes. 'To each the boulders have fallen to each' (line 16) shows that fault lie on the behalf of both neighbours. The metaphor in line seventeen compares their disputes to loaves and balls - some are small and some are large. Figurative language has been used to convey the meaning and significance of building the wall.

An overall light-hearted tone has been achieved throughout the poem. One of the main techniques used to achieve this is the inclusion of conversation. 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' (line 19) and the metaphor 'spring is mischief in me' (line 28) for example, shows the neighbours having fun in mending the wall together, creating a cheerful, light-hearted atmosphere. The comparison of the repairing of the fence to an outdoor game also contributes to this light-heartedness. Although the narrator does not want the wall, ironically, the mending of the wall brings the neighbours together and literally builds their friendship. In repairing the fence, the neighbours are spending time together, building their friendship and improving the communication between them. Humour has also been used as a technique to achieve a light-hearted atmosphere. Because the fence is important to the neighbour, he treats the matter of repairing it seriously. Imagery is used to describe the neighbour's attitude, illustrating a rather grim, yet comical representation of him shifting the stones and repairing the fence. The narrator sees the stubbornness in his neighbour, and uses the simile 'like an old-stone savage' to compare him to a stone-age man who 'moves in darkness' (lines 40, 41), that is, set in his ways, and who is unlikely to change his views.

The structure of the 'Mending Wall' is a long one-stanza poem. It is written in blank verse and contains a narrative-like style. Repetition is used as a technique to emphasize the main ideas. The line 'something there is that doesn't love a wall' has been repeated in line thirty-five with a new meaning. It refers to the attitudes of the narrator towards the wall - the narrator does not 'love the wall' and wants it down - whereas the 'something' mentioned in the first line of the poem refers to nature. Another example of repetition is the statement 'good fences make good neighbours'. This reflects back to and emphasizes the idea and opinion society adopts: Although people can be good friends, there will always be a barrier standing between them, acting as a boundary that separates their social relations from their personal privacy, 'walling in' what they do not wish to share with others.

In 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost communicates his opinion regarding the ideas of barriers between people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers, through the perspective of the narrator of the poem. Poetic techniques such as imagery, figurative language, irony, and the use of the building of a wall as a symbolic representation of barriers have been utilized to convey these messages through a light-hearted tone, and simultaneously to portray a serious side of the poem.
Sources
www.helium.com/items/1454903-mending-wall-analysis-24.09.2010

D.N. Aloysius