MENDING WALL

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

The poem Mending Wall was written and published by Robert Frost in 1914 in an influential collection of poems titled North of Boston. Throughout much of his career, a time when many Americans felt alienated by increasingly innovative poetry, Frost was an unusually popular poet. This is due in part to the fact that, while other writers tended to abandon the qualities of poetry of the previous century, Frost's work maintained many of poetry's more traditional conventions. Frost famously insisted, for example, that poetry should be written with formal meter, while many contemporary writers had already abandoned this convention. This doesn't mean, however, that Frost's poetry was straightforward or traditional in content or perspective, as Mending Wall illustrates.

The poem is loosely written in blank verse, meaning unrhymed lines consisting of five iambs in each line. Iambs are metrical feet that have two syllables, one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, as in 'belong,' or 'along,' or 'away.' As we'll see, in addition to creating an overall sound and feeling to the poem, the blank verse form also contributes to the poem's meaning.

Every year, two neighbors meet to repair the stone wall that divides their property. The narrator is skeptical of this tradition, unable to understand the need for a wall when there is no livestock to be contained on the property, only apples and pine trees. He does not believe that a wall should exist simply for the sake of existing. Moreover, he cannot help but notice that the natural world seems to dislike the wall as much as he does: mysterious gaps appear, boulders fall for no reason. The neighbor, on the other hand, asserts that the wall is crucial to maintaining their relationship, asserting, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Over the course of the mending, the narrator attempts to convince his neighbor otherwise and accuses him of being old-fashioned for maintaining the tradition so strictly. No matter what the narrator says, though, the neighbor stands his ground, repeating only: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

ANALYSIS of the POEM

'Mending Wall' opens with a speaker explaining that his property is separated from his neighbor's by a stone wall that is constantly being dismantled by 'something that doesn't love a wall.' Just what this something is that disrupts the wall remains somewhat vague, but the speaker illustrates that it cannot be animals or hunters. The task of mending the wall is difficult, and because nothing in their respective properties poses a threat to the others, the speaker tries to convince his neighbor that there is no need to continue to fix the wall.

The neighbor, however, is unconvinced by the speaker's reasoning and in response, simply utters his father's saying that 'good fences make good neighbors.' The speaker again presses his neighbor, pointing out that rational people should know exactly what they are keeping in and keeping out when they build a wall, yet again the neighbor resists the speaker's reasoning. The poem ultimately ends symbolically with the neighbor's repetition of the adage that 'good fences make good neighbors.'

One of the central themes of this poem is the difficulty of changing social conventions and traditions. The wall can be seen to symbolize an activity that is unquestionably undertaken, and the neighbor’s unsatisfying response to the speaker’s logic illustrates how stubborn people are to challenge these activities.

In terms of form, “Mending Wall” is not structured with stanzas; it is a simple forty-five lines of first-person narrative. Frost does maintain iambic stresses, but he is flexible with the form in order to maintain the conversational feel of the poem. He also shies away from any obvious rhyme patterns and instead relies upon the occasional internal rhyme and the use of assonance in certain ending terms (such as “wall,” “hill,” “balls,” “well”).

In the poem itself, Frost creates two distinct characters who have different ideas about what exactly makes a person a good neighbor. The narrator deplores his neighbor’s preoccupation with repairing the wall; he views it as old-fashioned and even archaic. After all, he quips, his apples are not going to invade the property of his neighbor’s pine cones. Moreover, within a land of such of such freedom and discovery, the narrator asks, are such borders necessary to maintain relationships between people? Despite the narrator’s skeptical view of the wall, the neighbor maintains his seemingly “old-fashioned” mentality, responding to each of the narrator’s disgruntled questions and rationalizations with nothing more than the adage: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

As the narrator points out, the very act of mending the wall seems to be in opposition to nature. Every year, stones are dislodged and gaps suddenly appear, all without explanation. Every year, the two neighbors fill the gaps and replace the fallen boulders, only to have parts of the wall fall over again in the coming months. It seems as if nature is attempting to destroy the barriers that man has created on the land, even as man continues to repair the barriers, simply out of habit and tradition.

Ironically, while the narrator seems to begrudge the annual repairing of the wall, Frost subtly points out that the narrator is actually more active than the neighbor. It is the narrator who selects the day for mending and informs his neighbor across the property. Moreover, the narrator himself walks along the wall at other points during the year in order to repair the damage that has been done by local hunters. Despite his skeptical attitude, it seems that the narrator is even more tied to the tradition of wall-mending than his neighbor. Perhaps his skeptical questions and quips can then be read as an attempt to justify his own behavior to himself. While he chooses to present himself as a modern man, far beyond old-fashioned traditions, the narrator is really no different from his neighbor: he too clings to the concept of property and division, of ownership and individuality.

Ultimately, the presence of the wall between the properties does ensure a quality relationship between the two neighbors. By maintaining the division between the properties, the narrator and his neighbor are able to maintain their individuality and personal identity as farmers: one of apple trees, and one of pine trees. Moreover, the annual act of mending the wall also provides an opportunity for the two men to interact and communicate with each other, an event that might not otherwise occur in an isolated rural environment. The act of meeting to repair the wall allows the two men to develop their relationship and the overall community far more than if each maintained their isolation on separate properties.