A review of Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall.
This paper examines Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” in which the speaker seems to question the ideals of “good fences make good neighbors” and the nature of relationships between people, as well as humans and nature. It analyzes how Frost’s language and images brings a wonderful pace to a poem that at face value is a quaint look at a country tradition between neighbors and how it is filled with symbolic images that bring to the surface a thoughtful examination of the relationships between people and the course of nature through our relationships and lives. It makes us think about how we conduct ourselves with each other and perhaps ponder the walls we have in our lives.
Nature’s cycle plays a part in the deterioration of the wall, and this is symbolic of us. In the spring of our lives we are building up relationships and learning. As Frost says, spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder. In the winter period, when we are older, we become like stone, as a stalwart in our communities. Though we may be knowledgeable in old ways and traditions, it is the younger walls that are becoming versed in the fields that we fence in.