Mending Wall Poem Analysis: Robert Frost's Meaning

‘Mending Wall’ is a record of Robert Frost’s invaluable conception of removing all racial, religious, colour and cast based barriers which he has portrayed at symbolically and imperceptibly through the image of mending the walls where ‘mend’ does not convey conventional meaning rather it means ‘to demolish or destroy’. Hence, the opening line of his poem brings forward the core concept of the whole poem;

 

Line: 1-4

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 poet says that it is a mysterious force of nature that does not allow walls to stand firmly and to that effect, it swells the frozen ground (due to intense cold in winter) under the walls with a hidden motive to set them fall. Add to this, it throws down the bricks and stones that make up the top of the wall. Meaning thereby that nature keeps knocking down the walls from their foundations to their tops. The motive behind is to create breeches big enough to allow two persons to get through side by side.

 

Line: 5-11

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 please 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 there.

 

The hunters also dig beneath the walls and make breeches in order to find out their preys but their motives are quite different from that of nature. Once, I followed some hunters who along with their hungry dogs were behind a rabbit and I repaired the wall by putting stone on stones where they had left the wall without mending. In fact, they had made a physical gap in the wall. But the gaps the poet talks about are rather non-physical and therefore no one has seen them made or heard them made throughout the Winter. But at the arrival of Spring, these gaps appear by themselves. What a paradoxical statement it is when poet says that Spring is a mending time which creates breeches.

 

Line: 12-19

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep 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!’

 

I decided to tell the same function of nature to my closest neighbor who lived a hill away. For that purpose, we met each other and started walking along the boundary line that separates our two gardens. We established a wall (not physical but which the nature breeches in) between us. The wall (like an uninvited guest) went along with us until the boundary line came to an end. During the walk, we kept on setting up the stones that had fallen on each of the sides to mend the wall. The sones that had fallen on my side were loaf shaped (easy to set up) whereas those found on my neighbor’s side were round shaped (difficult to stay at top). The poet, in a joking mood, says that we counted spell (requested the stones) to stay at place until we get apart.

 

Line: 20-27

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine 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 neighbors.’

Continuous holding and settling of the stones from each side of the wall had made our finger-tips rough. We were so much engrossed in this practice as if it were a game. In fact, we did not need a wall between us at all. He was the owner of an orchard of pines whereas I had that of apples. The poet tried to convince his neighbor that the branches of my apple trees will never cross our boundary line with a purpose of picking and eating woody cones fallen down your pine trees. But he bewildered me with his indigestible statement: ‘The more fences and barriers are, the better neighbors will be’.

 

Line: 28-34

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? 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 offense.

 

The poet’s mischievous nature compelled him to put few questions to his neighbor in order to divert him from his stand: ‘How do the walls and fences make good neighbors?’ and ‘Don’t we find them (fences) to bridle the animals?’ and then answer comes: ‘We are not animals’. If ever I decided to build a wall, preferably, I would like to know what I want to keep inside or outside meaning thereby that I will on the purpose of wall. Add to this, I would like to care if my walling does not offend anyone.

 

Line: 35-38

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. ………………………. .

 

The poet harps on the same string and insists that some mysterious force of nature does not like the walls. Rather, it intends to fall all constructed walls down and the poet names this force as ‘Elves’ i.e., a supernatural being. But in fact, it is not any elves in the true sense of word rather the poet used this word as he himself did not know what exactly it was.

 

Line: 38-45

……………………………………… 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.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

 

Then, I saw my neighbor coming with two stones gripped firmly by their tops in both of his hands and he appeared as if he were some savage from men of caves of primitive times who used stones as their weapons. At that time, it appeared as if he were going through darkness. It was not the darkness of woods or shadows of trees. Meaning thereby that it was not the darkness that we see at night rather that of ignorance. Ultimately, I reached one conclusion that he will never step back from old saying (which he had cherished) of his forefathers which says: ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.