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Mending Barriers
The poem “The Mending Wall” by Robert Frost tells about the relationship between two neighbors as they come together to mend the wall that separates their properties. It may be an entertaining tale, but Frost expresses a deeper meaning through his story. He does this by many means such as diction, tone, and figurative language, but most of all through his use of words and how he tells the story. The reader must examine every sentence carefully and read the poem a couple of times in order to understand that the wall is not the only thing that needs mending. Relationships, friendships, memories, barriers, communications, and much more also need mending. The message Frost brings out through the difference between the two characters applies to the lives of most people today.
The poem starts out with a basic introduction to the wall itself. The first line says, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” Frost is talking about how nature does not like walls. While nature includes rain, floods, and other elements, metaphorically speaking, nature represents emotions and feelings that just want to burst out and express themselves. Frost goes on to talk about other elements of nature, like animals during hunting season. He says, “The work of hunters is another thing: 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, But at spring mending-time we find them there.”
Now that the wall has been worn down and spring has arrived, Frost knows it’s time to repair the wall. He says, “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. To each the boulders that have fallen to each.” Frost meets up with his neighbor to repair the wall. In the process his neighbor continually says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The neighbor likes having a wall. It secludes him in his ignorance and quiet. He is like an old man who just wants to be alone and have his privacy. In contrast, Frost has a bubbly personality. He does not think they need a fence and sees it as a barrier that keeps them from becoming good friends. Frost uses easily understood imagery to describe his neighbor and himself. For example, he says that his neighbor farms pine trees, while Frost farms apple orchards. There is a great difference between a pine tree and an apple tree. Pine trees are dark, and scary, fruitless, enclosing areas, keeping you from viewing the sky; while apple trees are bright and colorful, providing nutritious fruit, and found in more open spaces. Likewise, Frost is bright and optimistic, while his neighbor is dark and pessimistic. Frost makes his neighbor out to be a stubborn sort of man, “like an old stone savage armed.” His neighbor is stubborn, unlikely to change, and ready to fight off those who challenge him. He describes his neighbor as one who “moves in darkness,” a darkness “not of woods only and the shade of trees.” Despite the obvious difference between Frost and his neighbor, Frost still stays light-hearted in his words.
“Spring is the mischief and me, and I wonder if I could put a notion into his head: ‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it 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 offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 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.”
We see a neighbor building a defense against relationships and new ideas.
Frost wants to befriend his neighbor, so he never gives up on getting rid of the barriers. His traditionalist neighbor likes the way things are. Behind all this, however, the barrier between Frost and his neighbor represents more than a physical wall; we see it in the lives of many today. Many people shield themselves in figurative boxes because they fear being hurt. Although they build walls in their lives, life, like hard weather and hunters wear away at their walls. Sometimes that is a good thing. Nothing ever comes of locking yourself up and ignoring what God has put in your life. “Nature” knocks your walls down. Like Frost, it wants men to walk side by side in a friendlier environment. Frost and his neighbor meet to repair a wall that has broken down over time. Perhaps their friendship has broken down or the neighbor does not know what to make of his feelings. The two may have had disputes to keep them from developing friendship, but springtime brings them back together to repair a broken wall, along with a broken friendship.
Frost conveys ideas of barriers between people; the barriers that we build for a sense of security. He implies that he yearns to have a friendship with his neighbor and break down the barriers between them. He uses detailed imagery to bring out his message and has an optimistic tone of light-heartedness. Frost also personifies nature as a “something” that “doesn’t love a wall.” He takes the basic elements of life and compares them to his experience with his neighbor in an indirect way. “The Mending Wall” beautifully looks into the heart. It teaches a deeper message, relevant in all times, through a realistic, colorfully told story.