The theme of the poem Mending Wall
The
poem 'Mending Wall is written by Robert Frost. It is first published in 1914.It is the
arbitrary separations that humans create between themselves. In the poem, the narrator, meets with his neighbor to rebuild a stone wall
that divides their two properties. He wonders why the wall is needed in the
first place. His property consists of apples trees, while his neighbor's
consists of pine trees: "He is all pine and I am apple-orchard. / My apple
trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines" (23-25).
When the persona tells his neighbor this, the neighbor stubbornly repeats the
adage he learned from his father: "Good fences make good neighbors"
(44). The neighbor is unwilling to critically evaluate why the wall must be
built. He continues to simply repair it year after year.
Frost
suggests that this wall, a metaphor for the separation we establish between
ourselves and those around us, is unnatural and in fact damaging to our health.
The poem begins, "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" (1-3). This "something" that doesn't love the wall must be
nature, for the wall is slowly eroded by natural processes. Furthermore, while
placing the fallen stones back on top of the wall, the persona says, "We
have to use a spell to make them balance: / 'Stay where you are until our backs
are turned!' / We wear our fingers rough with handling them" (18-20). The
neighbors must use "spells," a markedly unnatural process, to
preserve the wall. Also, the neighbors' hands are damaged while repairing the wall,
which once more suggests that this repairing is an unnatural and unhealthy
activity. With this, Frost uses the mending wall as an analogy for the
interpersonal barriers that we create against other individuals on the basis of
tradition, despite the fact that such barriers are unnecessary, unnatural, and
antithetical to our well-being.
