Frost's Mending Wall

Robert Frost's Mending Wall represents two opposing ideas through its dialogue between two neighbors. The narrator represents a newer way of thinking while his neighbor embodies an older mindset. In the poem the two neighbors are repairing a wall or fence that separates their property line. Although neither of the two men has anything that could cross the fence, the young man has apple trees and the old farmer has pines. The wall has been broken down by the winter that "sends the frozen ground swell under it" and by "the work of hunters" (Frost 1177-1178). The two men work together to repair the wall, a task that seems unnecessary to the young narrator. The older neighbor cannot fathom the thought of not having a wall or boundary to separate his land from his youthful neighbor, a belief that has been passed down from his father. Mending Wall is not unlike many Frost poems; it contains dialogue between two people that is never resolved. The Norton Anthology of American Literature gives a solid definition of what set Robert Frost apart from other creators of dialogue, "The clarity of Frost's diction, the colloquial rhythms, the simplicity of his images above all the folksy speaker-these are intended to make the poems look natural and unplanned." (1175-1176). Robert Frost created a poem in Mending Wall that represented opposite ends of the poles of thinking, while providing his reader with a dialogue that spoke the way they did. By doing this Frost makes his narrator and the neighbor both characters that could represent any one of his readers, whether old or young.

The argument at hand in Mending Wall is the necessity of boundaries between people and their belongings. The young narrator makes several points in trying to convince...

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...st Mending Wall is neither right nor wrong, pro nor con. The reader can understand after reading the poem that Mending Wall was intended to be neither right nor wrong. Society understands the practical approach of the youth, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out" (Frost 1178). Part of humanity, though, also understands the safeness of the old man's belief, "Good fences make good neighbors" (Frost 1178). An understanding can be reached by the reader on both ends of the pole. That is only due to the fact that Robert Frost wrote so simply in a vernacular form that the common man could understand. His way of communicating the ideals of both of his characters was not only easily readable but also easily relatable. This fact gives Robert Frost the unique feature of writing a story without a conclusion and having his reader accept that.