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Mr Edmonds

Physical and mental boundaries are explored throughout the poem ‘Mending Wall’ by Robert Frost. A sarcastic tone is reflected throughout the poem as the persona isn’t exactly sure why they are building the wall;

‘There where it is we do not need a wall:
He is all pine and I’m apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.’

The persona tries to explain to his neighbour that a wall is not necessary, ‘Good fences make good neighbours’, is all he gets in return. The persona doesn’t want to argue, so, he goes ahead and helps to build the wall, he knows it is a waste of time…

"Mending Wall" - by Robert Frost

"Mending Wall", composed by Robert Frost aims to explore both physical boundaries, the wall for example, and metaphorical boundaries - the persona questioning the need for a wall in the first place. The persona questions the need of a wall the is being used to divide the neighbour's properties. The persona is portrayed as having always believed there was no real need for a wall.

"Before I built a wall I'd asked to know

What I was walling in or walling out

And to whom i was like to give offence"

The persona, who is not necessarily Frost himself, uses sarcastic tones to suggest that no matter how strongly the traditional farmer believes they are in need of a wall, he is desperately flawed in his outlook.

"I could sat 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly,and I'd rather

He said it for himself."

Leah Callaghan

Mending Wall, By Robert Frost

"Mending Wall" is a poem written by Robert Frost. The poem is about two neighbours that come together annually to fix a wall that divides them. The boundaries in this poem are both physical and mental. The wall physically keeps them apart and the old man's ignorance limits the neighbour from saying what he thinks should happen, therefore is the mental boundary.

'There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am all apple orchid.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."'

The persona uses imagery to show that the old man is ignorant, saying that he is like a primitive caveman:

'I see him there,

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

he moves in the darkness as it seems to me,'

He also uses 'Pathetic Fallacy':

'Spring is the mischief in me,'

Mending Wall Blog

Blog: Mending Wall by Robert Frost

The two techniques used in this poem are the metaphorical and visual which, put together, forms the boundary between them. The visual imagery set into the poem is of the wall, "that sends the frozen-ground under it, and spills the upper boulder in the sun" that sentance makes up the image of the wall falling down which makes them come together to mend it. The metaphorical technique used is that the two farmers come together to fix this wall that keeps falling down although that is that reason that they are kept apart.

The poem is set in 1st person and is personal/sub-objective. There are two sides to the poem; one wants to help his property and keep out all the animals and the narrator wants to get rid of the wall and to form a friendship with this person.

By Isabel Hurley

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Response to Poem

1. What are the boundaries in the poem?
2. Explain how two techniques are used to create the theme of boundaries in the poem.

Poem One - "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
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,
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.
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.
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
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
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,
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.
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."

Robert Frost