Robert Frost | Mending Wall | An Analytical Study
Robert Frost’s Poem ‘Mending Wall’ An Analytical Study
Robert Frost | Mending Wall | An Analytical Study
Robert Frost (1874-1963) is an American poet who wrote poems after his own experience in a simple and terse style. The present poem ‘Mending Wall’ is characteristically a Frostian poem. The main theme of the poem is Separation. The title of the poem ‘Mending Wall’ suggests the theme of the poem. The poem deals with two contradictory ideas.
The poet Robert Frost had a neighbour. Between their farms, there was a wall. During every spring they met to mend the wall. In spring, they saw a hole in the wall as they were walking around the wall. The neighbour of the poet was a devout advocate the having a wall between them and his notion was:
‘Good fences make good neighbours.’
But the poet’s notion was contradictory. He thought that there was a need for no wall because there were no animals to spoil or harm their farms. So the spring season was the ‘mischief’ in him. His neighbourhood had pine trees on his farm and in that of the poet’s were apple trees. His apple trees never got across the other farm. But the neighbour was obstinate to his belief that “Good fences make a good neighbour.”
To the poet, the wall is a symbol of separation between the two. So he dares to say that his neighbour moved in the darkness. To quote the poet’s speech:
‘He moves in darkness as it seems to me.
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.’
From studying the subject matter and the poet’s philosophy expressed in the poem it may be said that the poet is board minded humanitarian and his neighbour is narrow-minded and selfish. The poet is the advocate of unity and the poet’s neighbour is the advocate of diversity. The neighbour physically as well as mentally goes away from the sense of unity. But the poet thinks that there should have no wall between them because it symbolizes separation.
Style and Language: The poem like the other poem of Robert Frost is written in simple language but it is free from the rhyme scheme. There is a felicitous comparison as “like an old —— savage armed.” To conclude is to say that this is a poem teaching broad-mindedness versus narrow-mindedness. 0 0 0
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N. B. This article entitled ‘Robert Frost | Mending Wall | An Analytical Study’ originally belongs to the book ‘World Poetry Criticism‘ by Menonim Menonimus.
Books of Literary Criticism by M. Menonimus:
- World Short Story Criticism
- World Poetry Criticism
- World Drama Criticism
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- World Essay Criticism
- Indian English Poetry Criticism
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