mending wall by Robert frost summary and analysis class

 

                                                      Mending Wall

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26 1874 in San Francisco, California. He was a noted and critically respected American poet of the 20^th century. The majority of his word had been published in England as well as America. He received his first Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for "New Hampshire". In 1960, he received the United States Congressional Gold Medal for " in recognition of his poetry" which enabled the culture of the United States and the Philosophy of the world. He died in 1963 in Boston. "Mending Wall was published in 1914, it was taken from his poetry collection 'North of Boston'. The poem can be regarded as a dramatic lyric. In England, there is the tradition of keeping the walls of stones between the neighbors. They believed that good fences make good neighbors. In the poem, the writer is against the tradition of keeping the wall. But his neighbor is in support kipping wall.

The poet wonders about the condition of walls; why some part of the wall is needed to repair every year. How do the top stones of the wall fall on the ground? Sometimes the hunters may damage the wall for searching the rabbits or the wall may be damaged by the harass weather. But the speaker remembers repairing the damaged wall immediately. The speaker doesn't know who would damage the wall and why the boulders fall and how the gap is created in the wall.

His neighbor lives beyond the hill and comes to repair the wall each spring. They walk to both sides of the wall and repair them every year. Some fallen stones are flat as loaves and some are round as a ball. Their hands become dirty as they are playing outdoor games. According to the speaker, they don't need any wall between them because the speaker has an orchard and his neighbor has a pine field. Mockingly he says that his apple tree can't go across his field and eat the cones of his pine. They don't have any cows which cross their wall. But his neighbor only says "Good fences make good neighbors".

As a routine, the speaker is walling in and walling out each year. He doesn't love walls but repairing walls frequently. The speaker tries his best to abolish the wall between them. He gives many examples to change the attitude of his neighbor, but can't change his mind. In addition, the speaker says that there is a force that does not love a wall. That is to say, it wants to pull it down. The poet proposes that elves could be making gaps in the wall which doesn't love the walls. The speaker tries to convince his neighbor to remove the wall between them but he remains still like an old stone and doesn't change his mind as his father said, "Good fences make good neighbor".

Theme of the poem

In the poem, the writer tries to make something change in the old tradition. The wall is presented as a barrier between the people. On the basis of caste, culture, religion, color, and economic condition there is a kind of wall created between the people. The writer wants to abolish the discrimination created between people but his neighbor remains against his thought. He doesn't want to make changes to his old tradition. He doesn't want to be changed with the time of the day.