"Mending Wall" Blog

The poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost is set in the countryside, focusing on two different neighbours who come together to mend a wall, in order to keep each other separate. Frost emphasizes two lines in particular, to represent the viewpoint of each neighbour, by repeating the lines “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and “Good fences make good neighbours.” This repetition expresses the physical boundary between the two men, which inhibits their relationship with one another.

The wall that brings the neighbours together, yet divides them, is both a metaphorical and physical boundary between them. It is metaphorical in the sense that the wall is a boundary that hinders their relationship and physical in the fact that it separates their land and personal space.

The persona speaks in a sarcastic tone, questioning whether having a wall is necessary, without animals to keep in;

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. (23-26)

The persona is trying to convince his neighbour that they both only have trees, not animals that need a boundary to stop them from going astray. The persona’s sarcastic tone in this verse conveys his impatience with the situation.

The persona feels that mending the wall is not worthwhile. The persona compares his traditional neighbour, to a primitive cave man, accentuating that the man is old-fashioned in his outlook. Frost describes the neighbour, using visual imagery and a simile;

I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. (38-40)

By Abby Sutherland, English 9.1