The main theme in Robert Frosts poem Mending Wall is an evaluation between two lifestyles: practices and a common sense. The author offers us a picture, illustrating two neighbors, two distinct character types with different ideas in what precisely methods to be considered a good neighbor. So they build and repair the wall structure between them each spring after destructions, made by character and hunters. They actually it every time, again and again, so the loudspeaker places the question if they need this wall membrane at all. Frost is sketching habit and customs on one area and logics and reasoning on another. The presenter feels that even mother nature itself does not want this wall to exist, referring all the destructions they find each and every time to nature's will to get rid of this wall structure as characteristics "sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, / And spills the upper boulders in sunlight. " Narrator is more wide open and adaptable, than his "old-fashioned" neighbor, and views things in different ways. The speaker seems to us as a friendly person, who would want a lot more communication and a friendly relationship along with his neighbor, than a parting and estrangement, brought on by blind following practices without even thinking about if it still occurs in their situation. As their house is all trees, so there exists nothing that can cross one's table. The narrator views a need for a wall membrane "where there are cows, " or somewhere else, however, not in their households.
The so this means of the poem is how people actually and figuratively build surfaces and obstacles between one another. Frost demonstrates sometimes it is absolutely unnecessary to place so many attempts and work in building of something, which is in fact useless. And perhaps not "Good fences make good friends and neighbors, " however, many other considerations as value and kindness do. All neighborhood friends' work that they are doing every time, reminds us of Sisyphean task, who had to push a boulder up the pile and before reaching the very top from it, the massive natural stone would roll back down, and Sisyphus acquired to start over. We evidently see almost the same situation in the poem: the wall, which separates two neighborhood friends, make sure they are meet each year for mending it after destructions, plus they both do a great job in repairing it. What seems very interesting and delicate to the viewers would be that the same wall structure that separates the neighbours unites them in once.
Poem Mending Wall does not have a rhyme and written in blank verse and does not have any stanzas, though it has a very interesting composition. The author's objective is to give this poem a conversational form, making it reasonable as natural speech. He is not using any elegant words here. Frost helps it be on purpose, providing this poem a peek of an extremely common storyline, so each reader may refer it to his own life situation.
Mending the Wall structure has forty-five lines of first-person narrative. Poem is written in an iambic pentameter form and, typically, there are ten syllables per lines, but we also can find lines with eleven syllables. You can find ten of such lines in this poem. Though it does not have any rhyme, the audience can observe that Robert Frost is using a subtle inside rhyme and the assonance in some ending conditions like "wall", "hill", "balls", "well" and others. Robert Frost shows here his mastery in irony, metaphors and figurative dialect, and symbolism.
The poem begins with "Something there exists it doesn't love a wall, " making readers to focus their attention on the main one of two arguments, occurred in the poem. This first argument belongs to the narrator, and he sticks with it till the finish of the poem. The first four lines tell us about how dynamics itself doesn't like a wall and directs disasters and push higher boulders down. So we see, that the wall structure itself is not natural, that's why the type is against wall's lifestyle.
In the next seven lines (5-11) we see another reason, which destroys this wall structure: it is hunters. However the narrator pertains these destructions to them with understanding, because he considers and understands the reason why of their activities: "But they could have the rabbit out of concealing. " It is a subtle assessment between friends and neighbors work and work of hunters: neighbours mend and repair the wall structure each spring just to find it damaged the next time, and then they mend it again, what differs from hunters' work, which damages the wall structure, but in the mean time their work is not pointless, because in the long run they get a benefit for it. We see that narrator has been skeptical towards keeping the wall.
Next nine lines (12-20) are extremely interesting, because despite to the fact that our narrator is not one of those friends and neighbors, who would like to keep the wall membrane, surprisingly, he's the first person who let his neighbor know each spring that it's a time to repair the wall membrane. We see that he is more active than his neighbor, finding facts in line 12: "I let my neighbor know beyond the hill. " We also find here, they are actually good neighborhood friends, because they both focus on this wall very hard: "We wear our fingers rough with handling them" [stones]. Again Frost offers us a very delicate idea how this "separating" wall structure unites two neighborhood friends and makes them interact as a team, makes them trust one another and help on the communication.
In lines 21-31 Frost compares mending wall with a patio game. And within lines 23 we find the primary concept reviewed in poem: "There where it is we don't need the wall structure, " which issues, that narrator is not a fan of the wall and provides us narrator's strong argument once again. It is a deceased point of the poem. The writer uses irony here, making narrator say to his neighbor that "My apple trees and shrubs will never get across / And eat the pines, " root, that two neighbours obviously don't have a genuine reason to make and keep this wall membrane. But neighbor only says that "Good fences make good friends and neighbors" (collection 27), supplying us another strong argument of the second aspect (neighbor). We find that both of these are so unconvincing and loyal to their ideas. Narrator needs to ask his neighbor "Why they [fences] make good friends and neighbors, " as he appears beyond this folk saying and doesn't just blindly follow this tradition.
Again in lines 32-34 we find disagreement between neighbors. Narrator is not quitting so quickly and wishes to ask what he's "walling in and walling out" and to whom he "was like give offense. " Narrator doesn't see a necessity of creating a wall if there is no criminal offense or various other things that could serve a reason for building this wall. But his words reach deaf ears.
The last part of the poem (lines 35-45) again starts with "Something there may be that doesn't love a wall" and ends with neighbor's words that "Good fences make good neighbors". Those are both strong quarrels, which are having shiny and clear differentiation in two men's viewpoints forever. The author uses metaphorical device here, implementing such words as "elves" and "old-stone savage armed", which ironically signify how old-fashioned and persistent the neighbor is. Such "heavy" explanation of neighbor also indicates how "heavy" and immovable he is in his view.
We can notice that there are repetitions of two lines in this poem. They are simply: "Something there exists that doesn't love a wall structure" and "Good fences make good neighbors". Robert Frost uses this technique to underline two main ideas in this poem. And no subject how our narrator would persuade the neighbor, presenting him acceptable ideas, this man would stay his floor.
In summary, the wall structure in Robert Frost poem Mending Wall membrane represents the life duality, the theme of damage and creation, which go along with each other. And here we see that destruction is not necessarily bad if we are discussing something that avoids good friends and neighbors' marriage; and creation is not always good, if we create something not useful, more to say, something that estrange folks from one another. The Frost's wall membrane is symbolic of ambiguity, separating and uniting two people at the same time.
Work Cited:
Frost, Robert. "Mending Wall. " The Small Bedford Launch to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer, 9th release. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 875. Print
