The Subject of Relationships in Robert Frost's Poem The Mending Wall

The Subject of Relationships in Robert Frost's Poem The Mending Wall

Robert Frost's poem "The Mending Wall" may not seem to be a poem with a lot of meaning but if readers take time to listen to what the author has to say they will discover that it is talking about the basic relationships between people. The author is focusing on an inanimate object that separated two individuals even though it is nothing more than a little stone wall in the middle of a field.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast

The above selection of the poem shows how impersonal the wall is. There is no humanity associated with this object, nor is there any emotion attached to it. Even thought the object has no emotion itself, there is emotion directed toward it as we see in line 1 of the poem. There is something out in the world that doesn't like this wall. Not only does this relate the author's feelings about how it keeps objects separated, This feeling of animosity has gone so far that something has gone as far as to destroy sections of the wall.

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,

The author goes even further in his description of the emotions directed at the wall, and explains that other dislike the wall as well. Although they dislike it because it is helping to hide the quarry they are after. The hunters express this dislike of the wall but physically destroying the wall, they tear it down even though it is not their wall. This goes a long way at letting the reader understand that this poem is also about relationships between people. Often times others will attack a person to get something they want with little to no regard for the person that is being attacked.

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;