Review of Mending Wall (Part )

Review Of Mending Wall

The poem “Mending wall” written by Robert Frost belongs to the Modern Poetry of English Literature.Robert Frost was one of the best loved American poet of the last century. Being a pioneer poet of America, he considered 2 basic themes in his poems. They are Nature and Relationship. Both these aspects were endangered in the contemporary American society. 

The poem focuses on the annual repairing of the wall which stands in between the estate of the poet and his neighbour. The poet finds this practice meaningless because neither the trees in his garden nor those in his neighbour's garden could uproot themselves and jump into the other.  

The themes discussed through the poem are,

·         Divisions, both natural and man made

·         Unity through separation

·         The difficulty of establishing and maintaining human relationships among diversified individuals in the society.

·         The need of respecting each other’s individuality in order to maintain long lasting relationship.

The techniques used in the poem are,

·         Form of a free verse

·         First person point of view

·         Use of powerful imagery

ü  Wall – Society, divisions, unity (multiple symbolic representation)

ü  Apple and pine orchard- story telling method

·         Use of paradoxical statements

ü  Good fences make good neighbours

·         Use of contrast

ü  Attitude towards the wall are contrasting

·         Conversational language

·         Use of direct speech to increase its effect

             

Mending Wall (Part 1)

Mending wall

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 work of hunters is another thing:

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 pleasure the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them thee

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us as we go

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

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

Oh, Just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side it comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall

He is all fine and I am apple orchard

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head

Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall

That wants it down I could say Elves to him

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself.  I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed

He moves in darkness as it seems to me

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

Robert Frost(1874 - 1963)

Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in 1874, San Francisco, California. Frost started writing poetry at a very early age. But he was not successful in publishing his work. Then he moved to England in 1912 and was able to published his poetic works, such as “Boy’s Will” and “North of Boston”.

Frost followed a way of uniting opposites in his poetry works. He can be introduced as a philosophical poet. His poetry deals with the specific habits, manners and belief of the people of New England and scenic beauty of his landscape.  But these poems are much deeper than the mere scenes. There is always a very human message for his readers. He was considered as a native poet in America.

In 1961, at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, Frost became the first poet to read a poem “The Gift Outright”. He was considered as an American poet who wins Pulitzer prizes four times.

Robert Frost  was died in 1963.