Mending Wall Summary

“Mending Wall” is a 1914 poem by Robert Frost that questions the perpetuation of unexamined
traditions.

The poem’s speaker describes the forces that corrode the wall between his property and his
neighbor’s each winter, such as freezes and hunters.

The speaker and his neighbor meet at “spring mending-time” to repair the wall.

The speaker asks why they need a wall when neither owns animals. His neighbor replies, “Good
fences make good neighbors.”

When the speaker presses further, the neighbor is unreceptive. He stands “like an old-stone savage
armed” and repeats his father’s dictum, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Introduction

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” was first published in 1914 in Frost’s second volume of verse, North
of Boston. The poem, which draws on Frost’s own experiences living in New Hampshire, confronts
the tensions produced by society, as well as the conflict between humanity and the natural world.
“Mending Wall” has become one of Frost’s most widely read and studied poems, exemplifying his
lifelong thematic concerns and his signature stylistic blend of colloquial cadence and prosodic
precision.

Summary

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” is a meditation told from the perspective of a landowner who joins
his neighbor in repairing the stone wall that marks the line between their adjacent properties. As the
speaker notes in the opening line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He describes the
different forces at work against the wall, including the “frozen-ground-swell” that surges upward,
toppling and dispersing the stones from below and creating wide gaps. There is also the destructive
activity of local hunters who, accompanied by their dogs, strip away the stones from the wall to
force rabbits out of hiding. The speaker has never seen the damage being wrought, but every spring
he sees the results.

Thus every spring brings “mending-time.” One day, the speaker calls on his neighbor, and they meet
to mend the wall. The two men walk along the wall, each on his own side, fixing the broken portions
of the wall as they go. They raise the fallen stones, some like bread loves and others like spheres
that wobble and threaten to fall. In such cases, the speaker and his neighbor jokingly cast spells on
the stones, telling them to stay put “until our backs are turned!” In general, the speaker
characterizes the work as difficult but done in a playful spirit.

The speaker then makes an observation: his neighbor’s lot contains only pine trees; his own, only
apple orchards. Because there are no animals to contain or keep out, the wall is unnecessary. The
speaker mentions this fact, humorously remarking that his apple trees will not cross the property
line and eat the neighbor’s pine cones. The neighbor curtly replies, “Good fences make good
neighbors.”
Feeling that he is filled with the mischief of springtime, the speaker persists in his line of skeptical
questioning. Noting again the wall’s uselessness, the speaker says, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to
know / What I was walling in or walling out.” When the speaker then repeats—out loud now—the
dictum of the opening line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” it seems that the speaker
himself is an agent of that “Something.” The speaker cannot identify precisely what that
“Something” is. He suggests that he could name “Elves” as the culprit, but he knows that this would
not be a precise answer. Moreover, he wants the neighbor to say what it is, given his insistence on
maintaining the wall.

The speaker then sees the neighbor in an altered, almost dreamlike light. The neighbor raises a stone
in both hands, “like an old-stone savage armed.” To the speaker’s eye, “he moves in darkness,” one
that is not associated with the shadows of the woods. Finally, the neighbor responds to the
speaker’s objections, deferring again to his beloved saying. He takes pleasure in this favored adage,
which, it turns out, is passed down from his father. But there is also a sense of obedience to his
adherence to it, a suggestion that he would not dare “go behind” his father’s wisdom. The final line
of the poem ends with the neighbor’s repetition of “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Mending Wall Themes

The main themes in “Mending Wall” are human boundaries, order versus chaos, and man versus
nature.

Human boundaries: The poem explores and questions the need for boundaries between people.

Order versus chaos: The order of the wall is placed in opposition to the chaotic forces that threaten
it.

Man versus nature: The wall represents an artificial imposition onto the natural world, which resists
its presence.

Human Boundaries

In “Mending Wall,” Frost explores the social and relational boundaries between people, using the
stone wall as a metaphor for such boundaries. The poem considers the question of whether it is
necessary to maintain borders between people and offers an ambiguous answer to that question.

The poem initially presents the mending of the wall as an unquestioned tradition that the speaker
and his neighbor share. The speaker identifies the causes of the damage—winter weather, passing
hunters—and seems to take it for granted that, just as they have done every year, he and his
neighbor ought to meet to make the proper repairs. Indeed, it is the speaker who initiates this ritual.

However, the activity of repairing the wall is soon cast in a conflicting light. On the one hand, the
men seem to enjoy each other’s company. As they place the fallen stones back in place, they “use a
spell to make them balance.” Somewhat paradoxically, this sense of playfulness and cooperation is
borne of an effort to reinforce the divide between the two men. On the other hand, the speaker
soon begins to question the entire endeavor, referring to the mending as
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.

Here, the speaker subtly shifts into a mode of skepticism, questioning the need for a wall between
two landowners who have only trees on their respective properties. When the neighbor responds to
the speaker’s skepticism with the adage “Good fences make good neighbors,” this saying clarifies
that the purpose of the wall is more abstract than physical. The nature of this boundary confounds
the speaker, who remarks, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling
out.” The speaker cannot precisely identify this force that must be divided, contained, or walled off,
but he soon glimpses the neighbor

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.

There is a “darkness” or brutality to the neighbor that is related to his insistence on the maintenance
of the wall. This “savage” quality is tied to his beloved adage, which he utters again in the final line of
the poem. This passage is ultimately ambiguous in the way it presents the wall—and boundaries
more generally. On the one hand, the speaker’s vision of his neighbor as “an old-stone savage” may
underscore his own sense that the wall is pointless and that the neighbor’s adherence to the wall is
regressive. On the other hand, the brutality and threat of violence that the speaker sees in his
neighbor can be seen as an argument for the wall, which might serve as a safeguard against the
darker potentialities of human nature.

Order Versus Chaos

The poem illustrates the tension between order and chaos, two elemental forces which are
represented by the wall’s cyclical repair and destruction. The opening line draws attention to the
constant presence of chaos, which the speaker refers to as “Something there is that doesn’t love a
wall.” Chaos takes several forms in the poem, the most obvious being inclement weather conditions,
namely “the frozen-ground-swell” that sunders the wall from below, and the destruction done by
hunters who pull apart the wall to draw rabbits out of hiding.

The speaker initially names these external sources of chaos, but as the poem goes on, it becomes
clear that he himself embodies some of this chaotic potential. As he and his neighbor repair the wall
from either side, the speaker realizes that the wall is pointless, separating pine trees from apple
trees. Before he voices this realization, he reflects, “Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I
could put a notion in his head.” Not only do these lines identify the speaker as part of that
“Something” that “doesn’t love a wall,” they fittingly convey that a larger force is moving through
him and animating him. That force—which can be identified as spring, mischief, or that which
“doesn’t love a wall”—is fundamentally that of chaos.
Chaos is counterposed by order, embodied by the neighbor’s staunch adherence to the maintenance
of the wall, to his father’s adage that “Good fences make good neighbors,” and to tradition itself.
Order functions in several ways in this poem, pushing against the inevitable damages wrought by
nature, establishing clear boundaries between the two characters, and upholding the ways of the
past through respect, inertia, or a combination of both.

As with many aspects of this poem, the tension between order and chaos is left unresolved. Not only
is it unclear whether the speaker ultimately finds the neighbor’s call for order compelling, it is
certain that time will bring fresh destruction to the wall.

Man Versus Nature

“Mending Wall” explores the line between the human and natural worlds. The wall is fundamentally
shown to be an artificial object that imposes precariously on the natural landscape. The poem’s
earliest lines show how the wall’s existence is tenuous, given the natural forces working against it,
freezing and swelling the ground underneath the wall and scattering its stones. Later, when the
speaker and his neighbor repair the wall, the very laws of physics seem to be working against their
efforts. The men “use a spell” to make the stones balance, shouting “Stay where you are until our
backs are turned!” Even the environment which the wall traverses belies its presence—indeed, the
speaker remarks that the adjacent swathes of pine and apple trees have no need for an intervening
border. It should be noted that there are human forces, too, that threaten the wall’s artificial
existence, including “the work of hunters” and the speaker himself. But even in such instances,
human destructiveness is framed in terms of the natural: as the speaker says, “Spring is the mischief
in me.”

Conversely, the neighbor’s efforts to repair the wall, which the speaker finds mysterious, are framed
in terms that are unnatural: the neighbor “moves in darkness as it seems to me, / Not of woods only
and the shade of trees.” Ultimately, the wall’s artifice lies in the way it apportions and simplifies the
world. But the neighbor’s drive to uphold the wall is a desire to divide a natural world that knows no
such divisions, and so the wall will remain embattled and provisional.

Analysis

Frost penned “Mending Wall” in blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter—without stanza

breaks. Frost favored this form, using it in other well-known lyric poems such as “Birches” and “Out,
Out—.” The form lends itself to a combination of narrative and meditation. “Mending Wall” tells the
story of two landowners mending the wall that runs between their properties, but under the surface
of the story, the speaker is busy investigating why the wall is broken and whether and why it ought
to be mended.

The first word of Frost’s poem introduces a mystery to be solved. The “Something” that “doesn’t
love a wall” is both ambiguous and impersonal. In the broadest sense, that “Something” is entropy:
natural and human forces with no regard for the wall’s integrity. As the poem unfolds and the
speaker begins to engage his neighbor on the question of the wall’s necessity, it becomes clear that
the speaker himself is an agent of these entropic forces, a vessel for that “Something . . . that
doesn’t love a wall.” The speaker acknowledges this truth, claiming that “Spring is the mischief in
me” before questioning his neighbor’s dogmatic adage, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

In the final lines of the poem, the speaker glimpses another force at play, one which lends the wall
its reason for being and validates the neighbor’s favorite saying. The speaker sees the neighbor hoist
a stone, seeming to wield it as if he were “an old-stone savage armed.” There is a veiled, latent
brutality in the neighbor that the speaker sees as “darkness… / Not of woods only and the shade of
trees.” In the light of this vision, the wall—and the other conventions of civilization—seems a
necessary measure to place against such savage potential. By the end of the poem, it is unclear
whether the neighbor is conscious of this inner darkness that lends credence to his father’s adage.
Either way, he repeats it with relish.

Frost’s diction and syntax in “Mending Wall” illustrate his lifelong interest in creating verse that
reflects the sounds and rhythms of speech. In letters to John Bartlett in 1913 and 1914, written
around the time he composed “Mending Wall,” Frost discusses the importance of capturing the
natural music of speech, a quality which Frost refers to as “the sound of sense.” According to Frost’s
poetics, verse should attempt to incorporate “sentence sounds” that are “not bookish, caught fresh
from the mouths of people, some of them striking, all of them definite and recognizable.” But while
Frost emphasizes the value of such unaffected sounds, he also acknowledges the poet’s role in using
those sounds carefully, bringing them into the prosodic scheme of the poem with precise artistry.

One clear example of this technique in “Mending Wall” is the line “Stay where you are until our
backs are turned!” It is fitting—and perhaps expected—that this line of dialogue sounds like a real
piece of speech, but consider, too, how neatly it conforms to the poem’s meter. The line’s first foot
—“Stay where”—represents a common trochaic substitution, and the rest of the line consists of
iambs. Thus, the line unfolds naturally within the poem’s flow of blank verse. These “sentence
sounds” can also be heard clearly in phrases such as “The gaps I mean” and “It comes to little more,”
which also maintain a perfect iambic rhythm. In all of these examples, the diction, syntax, and
cadence of the language reflect a colloquial style of speech, and yet Frost succeeds in rendering
these true-to-life phrases in what is in fact highly wrought poetry. This is one of the central
paradoxes of Frost’s style: there is immense care and artistry behind language that sounds as
unrefined as everyday speech.

In “Mending Wall,” Frost creates irony through the repetition of key phrases. Each of the two
characters, the speaker and the neighbor, presents an important statement twice. And for each
statement, its reiteration complicates and expands its meaning. The speaker’s key phrase is
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” which he offers as the opening line of the poem. In its
initial context, the line is meant to evoke the various external forces that work against the wall: the
winter’s cold weather, which causes the “frozen-ground-swell,” and the hunters who pull apart the
wall’s stones to flush out rabbits. These constitute a clear “Something,” and so the line’s meaning is
presumed to be complete. However, the speaker reiterates the line during his exchange with his
neighbor, by which point the speaker has expressed doubts about the purpose of the wall. The
speaker increasingly takes a stance against the wall, and so when he repeats “Something there is
that doesn’t love a wall,” the deeper significance of the line is revealed: the speaker himself
contributes to that “Something.”

The neighbor’s key phrase is “Good fences make good neighbors,” and indeed it is the only piece of
dialogue attributed to him alone. The first instance of the statement presents it as a piece of
common, traditional wisdom. But after the speaker presses the neighbor on this point, wondering
“Why do they make good neighbors,” the neighbor undergoes a subtle but profound transformation,
temporarily appearing to the speaker as “an old-stone savage armed” as he lifts a stone to place
upon the wall. Against the context of this newly perceived “darkness,” the neighbor again says,
“Good fences make good neighbors.” Here, the statement takes on a menacing tone, and the
suggestion is that fences are needed as a bulwark against this strange “darkness.” In both of these
reiterations, there is an irony in how the statements are altered in unexpected ways when they recur
in new contexts, revealing the deeper meaning that always existed but was initially obscured.

The Poem

“Mending Wall” is a dramatic narrative poem cast in forty-five lines of blank verse. Its title is
revealingly ambiguous, in that “mending” can be taken either as a verb or an adjective. Considered
with “mending” as a verb, the title refers to the activity that the poem’s speaker and his neighbor
perform in repairing the wall between their two farms. With “mending” considered as an adjective,
the title suggests that the wall serves a more subtle function: as a “mending” wall, it keeps the
relationship between the two neighbors in good condition.

In a number of ways, the first-person speaker of the poem seems to resemble the author, Robert
Frost. Both the speaker and Frost own New England farms, and both show a penchant for humor,
mischief, and philosophical speculation about nature, relationships, and language. Nevertheless, as
analysis of the poem will show, Frost maintains an ironic distance between himself and the speaker,
for the poem conveys a wider understanding of the issues involved than the speaker seems to
comprehend.

As is the case with most of his poems, Frost writes “Mending Wall” in the idiom of New England
speech: a laconic, sometimes clipped vernacular that can seem awkward and slightly puzzling until
the reader gets the knack of mentally adding or substituting words to aid understanding. For
example, Frost’s lines “they have left not one stone on a stone,/ But they would have the rabbit out
of hiding” could be clarified as “they would not leave a single stone on top of another if they were
trying to drive a rabbit out of hiding.”

In addition to using New England idiom, Frost enhances the informal, conversational manner of
“Mending Wall” by casting it in continuous form. That is, rather than dividing the poem into stanzas
or other formal sections, Frost presents an unbroken sequence of lines. Nevertheless, Frost’s shifts
of focus and tone reveal five main sections in the poem.

In the first section (lines 1-4), the speaker expresses wonder at a phenomenon he has observed in
nature: Each spring, the thawing ground swells and topples sections of a stone wall on the boundary
of his property. In the second section (lines 5-11), he contrasts this natural destruction with the
human destruction wrought on the wall by careless hunters.

The last sections of the poem focus on the speaker’s relationship with his neighbor. In the third
section (lines 12-24), the speaker describes how he and his neighbor mend the wall; he portrays this
activity humorously as an “outdoor game.” The fourth section (lines 25-38) introduces a contrast
between the two men: The speaker wants to discuss whether there is actually a need for the wall,
while the neighbor will only say, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The fifth section (lines 38-45)
concludes the poem in a mood of mild frustration: The speaker sees his uncommunicative neighbor
as “an old-stone savage” who “moves in darkness” and seems incapable of thinking beyond the
clichéd maxim, which the neighbor repeats, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Forms and Devices

In his essay “Education by Poetry” (1931), Robert Frost offers a definition of poetry as “the one
permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.” “Mending Wall” is a vivid example of
how Frost carries out this definition in two ways—one familiar, one more subtle. As is often the case
in poetry, the speaker in “Mending Wall” uses metaphors and similes (tropes which say one thing in
terms of another) to animate the perceptions and feelings that he wants to communicate to the
reader. A more subtle dimension of the poem is that Frost uses these tropes ironically, “saying one
thing and meaning another” to reveal more about the speaker’s character than the speaker seems to
understand about himself.

When the speaker uses metaphor in the first four sections of “Mending Wall,” he does it to convey
excitement and humor—the sense of wonder, energy, and “mischief” that spring inspires in him.
Through metaphor, he turns the natural process of the spring thaw into a mysterious “something”
that is cognitive and active: “somethingthat doesn’t love a wall,” that “sends” ground swells, that
“spills” boulders, and that “makes gaps.” He playfully characterizes some of the boulders as “loaves”
and others as “balls,” and he facetiously tries to place the latter under a magical “spell” so that they
will not roll off the wall. He also uses metaphor to joke with his neighbor, claiming that “My apple
trees will never get across/ And eat the cones under his pines.”

In the last section of the poem, however, the speaker’s use of simile and metaphor turns more
serious. When he is unable to draw his neighbor into a discussion, the speaker begins to see him as
threatening and sinister—as carrying boulders by the top “like an old-stone savage armed,” as
“mov[ing] in darkness” of ignorance and evil. Through this shift in the tone of the speaker’s tropes,
Frost is ironically saying as much about the speaker as the speaker is saying about the neighbor. The
eagerness of the speaker’s imagination, which before was vivacious and humorous, now seems
defensive and distrustful. By the end of the poem, the speaker’s over-responsiveness to the activity
of mending the wall seems ironically to have backfired. His imagination seems ultimately to
contribute as much to the emotional barriers between the speaker and his neighbor as does the
latter’s under-responsiveness.

Q2 a. How do the hunters damage the wall in "Mending Wall"?

According to the poet, it seems that hunters come by the wall during the winter and remove stones
in order to flush rabbits out of their hiding places within the wall. By tearing down sections of the
wall, the hunters destroy the rabbits' hiding places, thus allowing their dogs to chase them more
easily.

The subtle use of language in "I have come after them and made repair" (line 6) indicates that this is
a regular occurrence. The hunters have destroyed sections of the stone wall in the selfish pursuit of
their prey and apparently without concern for the landowners, who must work to repair the wall
each spring.

It is clear that the narrator does not think highly of the hunters who deliberately destroy the wall.
These hunters are unlike the natural forces of destruction, the freezing and thawing of the ground,
which destroys parts of the wall as well. The hunters, though, work in concert with these natural
forces of destruction. Like the mysterious "something" in the poem's first line, the hunters also don't
"love a wall."

----
In Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall," the narrator is inspecting the stone wall on his property for
damage. He writes that the hunters "have left not one stone on a stone," meaning that they have
not simply piled one stone on top of another. Instead, to flush the rabbits out of their hiding places
and "please the yelping dogs," the hunters have created gaps between places in the wall. No one
hears the hunters making these types of gaps, but the narrator and his neighbor find them in the
wall when they go to inspect it in the spring. The types of gaps the hunters make are very different
than the effects of the natural swelling of the frozen ground, which makes boulders spill out of the
top of the wall and makes very large gaps.

Q2b.

What are the characteristics of the speaker and the neighbour in the poem "Mending Wall" by
Robert Frost?

The speaker in the poem is a thoughtful man, hard-working, practical, and discerning. As he works
with his neighbour to repair the wall dividing their property, he questions the necessity of even
having a wall in certain places, noting, "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" (lines 23-
26). The speaker likes to examine issues and evaluate whether he is doing things for good reasons.
He is free-thinking, and would prefer not to have a wall at all, because "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" (lines 33-36).

The neighbour, on the other hand, sees no reason to even discuss the situation, repeating, "Good
fences make good neighbors" (lines 27 and 46). He is uncommunicative, and the speaker feels he is
rigid and unwilling to look at things in new ways. The neighbour hides behind old sayings, and the
speaker labels him "an old stone savage" who "moves in darkness" (lines 41-42). The neighbor is the
type of man who blocks other people and possibilities out of his life, both figuratively and
concretely.

What is the theme of the poem "Mending Wall"?

A widely accepted theme of "Mending Wall" concerns the self-imposed barriers that prevent human
interaction. In the poem, the speaker's neighbor keeps pointlessly rebuilding a wall. More than
benefitting anyone, the fence is harmful to their land. But the neighbor is relentless in its
maintenance. The speaker is upset his neighbor does not think critically about the fence upkeep and
instead relies on tradition over reason.

There are many ways of looking at this poem, which is what makes it an interesting piece to think
about. Its theme is the conflict between tradition and innovation.

In the poem, two neighbors mend the stone wall between their farms every spring. The speaker sees
no rational point to the task, because neither of the two men has livestock that can wander over the
property line to destroy the other's crops. They don't need the fence. The speaker would, therefore,
like to drop this annual task. His neighbor doggedly insists on the ritual because his father taught
him that good fences make good neighbors. For him, following an established tradition is more
important than practicality or innovation.
The speaker makes a compelling case that the fence mending serves no practical purpose. He
questions ritual for the sake of ritual. He thinks he other farmer seems to be living in the stone age
(perhaps that is an intended pun).

Yet, for all his complaining, the ritual does seem to make the speaker a better neighbor. He does
participate in the ritual, and in doing so, he talks with and bonds with his fellow farmer, and he deals
with the fact that the two of them look at the world through a different set of lenses. Frost leaves it
to the reader to decide whether the ritual does, after all, serve a purpose beyond merely mending a
fence. Good fences might make good neighbors not simply because they set up property boundaries,
but because their maintenance brings the people together.

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DAVID MORRISON

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One could argue that the overriding theme of the poem is the way in which human beings erect
barriers between themselves for no good reason. This theme is reflected in the attitude of the
speaker. He doesn't seen the point of himself and his neighbor going through the same ritual of
mending the wall each year when there are no doubts as to which piece of land belongs to which
man.

The speaker's neighbor stubbornly insists on maintaining this largely pointless barrier not for any
specific reason, but for the sake of convention. Good fences make good neighbors, as the saying
goes, and the speaker's neighbor wholeheartedly believes in this. At no point does it seem that he's
given any real thought to the saying's practical application in this precise context.

Like so many people on this planet, he seems neither to care nor to understand the fact that
barriers, even simple stone walls, separate people. They maintain wholly artificial distinctions
between one human being and another. The suggestion of the poem is that if people spent more
time mending relationships with each other and treating each other with decency and kindness,
then there would be less of a need to build physical barriers between ourselves.

What is the speaker's attitude toward the wall, in "Mending Wall"?

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MWESTWOOD, M.A.

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The speaker of Robert Frost's poem entitled "Mending Wall" does not see any need for a wall
between his property and that of his neighbor; he also finds walls unnatural.

In the opening line, the speaker suggests that "Something" in nature does not like a wall because it
causes the frozen ground to swell under this wall, spilling the "upper boulders" down as they create
gaps through which anyone could pass. Here the speaker suggests that it is not natural to have a
wall; after all, only man creates borders. For him and his neighbor, repairing this wall is but a "kind of
outdoor game" that they annually play as they try to balance the rocks from either side. In another
part of the poem, the speaker describes a place where there is no need for a wall:

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." (ll.23-27)

In his philosophical speculation, the speaker rejects as close-minded what the traditional neighbor
says. He describes his neighbor's bringing a stone "grasped firmly by the top/In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed" (ll.39-40) to fight. This man, he adds, "moves in [the] darkness" (l. 41). of
blind tradition because he "will not go behind his father's saying" (l.43). Instead, he habitually
follows the tradition of repairing the stone wall. Thus entrenched in the routine of repairing the wall,
the man repeats automatically the old saying of his father's, "Good fences make good neighbors"
(l.45).

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LORRAINE CAPLAN

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The narrator does not like walls, which is clear from the first line:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall (1)

He goes on to give examples of what nature wants to do to the wall, to spill the stones and make
large gaps in the wall, so we can infer that walls are unnatural as far as the narrator is concerned,
actually against nature.

He goes on to point out the foolishness of the wall, to no purpose, since there are no cows to keep
on one side of it and since his apple trees are not going to try to interfere with his neighbor's pine
trees, by straying over and eating the pine cones.

When he points this out to his neighbor, his neighbor responds that

Good fences make good neighbors (27)

He tries to point out that he would want to know the purpose of the wall before building one, what
it was meant to keep out and whom it might offend in its building. But no matter what he says, his
neighbor takes refuge in the same line.

The title is meant to be a somewhat ironic play on words, since in mending the wall with his
neighbor, the narrator is contributing to an endeavor that is not mending anything, but that is more
likely to promote bad feelings and offend nature itself.

What is the symbolism used in the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost?

Symbols used in the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost include the wall itself, the apple orchard,
the pine trees, and the reference to this being a "game" for the neighbors.

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D. REYNOLDS

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The main symbol in the poem is the wall itself. The wall in question is a low stone structure that
marks the dividing line between the speaker's farm and his neighbor's farm. Every winter, the wall
gets damaged—stones fall away or are displaced by hunters—and the two men meet to repair the
wall when warmer weather returns.

The wall symbolizes good boundaries, especially in the repeated phrase, "good fences making good
neighbors." However, the wall also symbolizes community. Repairing the wall brings the two
together in a yearly ritual that helps them remain good neighbors by bonding. They talk, they joke,
and they complete a project together. For all that the speaker complains about the wall being
unnecessary, he seems to enjoy this annual ritual of repairing it. Ironically, he is the one who
initiates it in the spring:

I let my neighbor know.

Another symbol Frost employs in this poem is darkness. As the speaker notes of his neighbor,

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

Here, darkness symbolizes ignorance. The speaker sees his neighbor as backward and tradition
bound for insisting on completing this yearly ritual even though neither of them has livestock that
could wander over the property line. Seeing his neighbor carrying a rock grasped from the top in
either hand, the speaker even likens him to an "old-stone savage armed."

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JULIANNE HANSEN, M.A.

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The primary symbol in "Mending Wall" is the wall itself. The speaker and his neighbor meet to mend
and reconstruct this wall, as they do each year, and they engage in a conversation about the real
purpose of the wall. His neighbor believes that the wall, and therefore physical divisions, are
necessary to maintain peace. By clearly marking the divisions of their properties, the neighbor
believes that they will be able to avoid future conflicts.
The speaker doesn't agree, believing instead that the wall is pointless. The wall divides the speaker's
apple orchard from his neighbor's pine trees; the apple trees are not going to cross the property
lines, anyway. Yet his neighbor simply repeats an old adage in response to this observation,
reminding the speaker that "good fences make good neighbors."

This demonstrates that his need for division is based in tradition and without much thought about
the need for those barriers. The wall is symbolic of all the ways humans divide themselves,
questioning whether those divisions are successful in maintaining a sense of peace or if the walls
themselves represent a sense of cynicism about coexisting with others peacefully.

It is interesting that the speaker grows apple trees. Apples are often symbolic of knowledge, which
symbolizes the speaker's sense of wisdom in this conversation. Instead of blindly accepting tradition,
he questions whether he and his neighbor benefit from their continual efforts to maintain a division
between them.

The pine tree often symbolizes kinship and peace in literature. The neighbor's property is covered in
pines. He is focused exclusively on maintaining peace through divisions, believing that his
relationship with the speaker depends on clear barriers. He means no ill will toward the speaker and
instead focuses on making steady progress through their efforts to reconstruct the deteriorating
segments of their wall.

The speaker reflects that this yearly activity is an "out-door game / One on a side." This is symbolic of
the outcome of divisions, alluding to the fact that games create both winners and losers.

The symbolism in the poem raises questions about the "walls" in our societies but allows the reader
to draw their own conclusions regarding the need for those divisions.

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KAREN P.L. HARDISON

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Major Symbols

The major symbols in "Mending Wall" are the stone wall and the "fences" spoken of by the
neighboring farmer: "He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbours.'" Each slightly different
from the other, both symbolize the artificial and deliberately constructed barriers humans seem
inevitably to erect between themselves.

There are two attitudes toward these barriers conveyed in the poem. The first is that of the speaker,
who seems to have a tolerant, amused attitude, although, being the poetic soul he is, his
amusement is soon off-set by contemplative musings. The second attitude is that of the neighbor,
who seems to have a serious, dutiful, no-nonsense attitude, which remains undeterred when the
speaker tries to engage him in riddles about the superfluity of walls:

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours?...

[...]

...I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,..."

Another important symbol is the twice-said "Something there is that doesn't love a wall...," which is
philosophically off-set by the twice-said "Good fences make good neighbours." Frost's
metaphysically speculative observation of the "something" that doesn't love a wall can be taken
literally as illustrated in the second line, which describes ground heaves of winter's frozen earth
[today in New England, brightly colored strings are stapled to utility poles warning drivers of
"Ground Heave," which can buckle roads up into ridges one or even two feet high]: "That sends the
frozen-ground-swell under it,...." The symbolic meaning of this "something" relates to the
paradoxical desire in humans for psychological and emotional intimacy even while erecting barriers
to such intimacy: "something" is the hesitance to be known paradoxically opposing the desire to be
known.

Secondary Symbols

There are secondary symbols in "Mending Wall." Some are "spills" and "gaps," paradoxically
symbolizing either (a) damage leading to vulnerability, such as hunters (symbolizing careless,
destructive people) in pursuit of symbolically innocent rabbits, or (b) openings leading to
opportunities, such as are created by "something," perhaps an inner "ground-swell" of psychological
expansion. Another symbol is "spring mending-time," symbolic of a cyclical opportunity for renewal
that continually offers new chances at the psychological and emotional intimacy desired (and, from
the mending wall neighbor, continually resisted).

Another significant symbol is the place, a specific section along the neighbor's wall, where there is
no need for a wall: "There where it is we do not need the wall." This place symbolizes a recurring
opportunity between people to find the desired connectedness, perhaps in ever-present social
situations in which renewal of opportunity is present on a recurring basis.

Something There Is That Doesn't Love A Wall Meaning

In "Mending Wall," what does the first line mean: "Something there is that doesnt love a wall that
sends the frozen-ground-swell under it."

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WALLACE FIELD

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The fact that the speaker does not specify what, precisely, is the "Something" that "sends the frozen-
ground-swell" under the fence could mean that the word something refers to nature, as another
educator suggested, or even God. The word "sends" in line two implies that the sender has a will, a
conscious purpose, so it seems logical to consider the possibility we should attribute such a sending
to a higher being. Further, in the lines which follow the first two, this "Something" also "spills" the
big rocks from the top of the fence out into the sun and "makes gaps" in the fence where two grown
men can walk through, side by side (lines 3, 4). These verbs are also active, like "sends," and imply
reason and purpose to the one who performs the actions. Therefore, it is plausible that the
"Something" which sends "the frozen-ground-swell"—freezing the water in the ground so that the
ground literally swells and bursts the fence with the movement—"spills boulders," and "makes gaps"
refers to God.

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COACHINGCORNER

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In the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, we also get the impression that the author is talking
about subjects other than Nature alone. With the words "Something there is..." he may be saying
that the something is something in human nature that doesn't like or need walls either, something
that doesn't like or see a need for barriers or conventions or restricitions all the time. Robert Frost
could be talking about himself here too. Yes, he goes on to say - lots of people do believe that good
fences make good neighbours because no-one then bothers or encroaches upon anyone else. But
others (Frost himself?) believe that there is no need,for example, to protect cattle from apple trees,
or corn from forestry plantations. He is saying that some people use protection as an excuse for
peoperty delineation and staking claims. Think of the Berlin Wall/Great wall too.

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ISABELL SCHIMMEL

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Literally, what this means is that (the speaker says) nature does not like walls. He is saying that
nature does not like to be hemmed in.

Because nature does not like walls, he says, it tries to break them down. The frozen ground swell is
probably what is called a frost heave. It's a thing where ground (water in the ground, actually)
freezes and thaws and swells up because of that. If it does that under a fence, it can break the
fence. You can see it happen to roads in places that have the right climate.

What are the characteristics of the speaker and the neighbour in the poem "Mending Wall" by
Robert Frost?

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DYMATSUOKA

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The speaker in the poem is a thoughtful man, hard-working, practical, and discerning. As he works
with his neighbour to repair the wall dividing their property, he questions the necessity of even
having a wall in certain places, noting, "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" (lines 23-
26). The speaker likes to examine issues and evaluate whether he is doing things for good reasons.
He is free-thinking, and would prefer not to have a wall at all, because "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" (lines 33-36).

The neighbour, on the other hand, sees no reason to even discuss the situation, repeating, "Good
fences make good neighbors" (lines 27 and 46). He is uncommunicative, and the speaker feels he is
rigid and unwilling to look at things in new ways. The neighbour hides behind old sayings, and the
speaker labels him "an old stone savage" who "moves in darkness" (lines 41-42). The neighbor is the
type of man who blocks other people and possibilities out of his life, both figuratively and
concretely.

Describe the relationship between the narrator and his neighbor in Robert Frost's poem "The
Mending Wall."

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WALLACE FIELD

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The speaker of the poem thinks that the wall is somewhat unnatural, and he believes that there is
"Something... that doesn't love a wall." Nature, for example, makes the frozen ground swell up
under the wall, knocking it down in places each year. The wall blocks the progress of hunters as they
walk through the meadows. More gaps are made by something, but the speaker does not see what
what does it and only "find[s] [the gaps] there" when spring comes. He and his neighbor "meet to
walk the line"—apparently they do not meet for any other purpose than this. They symbolically keep
the wall between them as they go; there is a figurative "wall" between them as much as there is a
literal wall. The wall is so unnatural and the stones so ill-fitted for stacking like this that the speaker
feels they "have to use a spell to make them balance." It is no easy task to keep rebuilding the wall.
And yet, the speaker says, "we do not need the wall."
Near the end of the poem, the speaker describes the neighbor as carrying stones in each hand, "like
an old-stone savage armed. / He moves in darkness as it seems to me...." The neighbor, however,
just keeps repeating the old adage that "Good fences make good neighbors." The relationship
between the two men, then, is somewhat frosty. They do not agree, and the speaker is made to do
work that he feels is unnecessary each time they go out to repair the wall. The neighbor seems to
want very little to do with the speaker, and the speaker does not seem to subscribe to the notion
that "Good fences make good neighbors." He would rather, I think, actually have a relationship with
the neighbor than have a fence. And so their relationship is distant at best and antagonistic at worst.

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COLIN CAVENDISH-JONES, PH.D.

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Frost's narrator begins by describing how nature and other people seem to be conspiring to destroy
the wall between his property and his neighbor's. By spring mending-time, it is full of gaps. When
this time comes:

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.

The fact that they have to communicate on this specific matter and set a date to mend the wall
shows that they do not regularly meet and talk on other matters.

The wall divides them as they mend it, but even so, they act in unison with a common purpose.
However, the narrator does point out that the wall is actually unnecessary, since they use their
properties for very different purposes: they can easily tell where the dividing line is, and neither of
them have livestock to be contained. This is when we first hear his neighbor's favorite proverb:
"Good fences make good neighbors."

The narrator makes it clear at the end of the poem that the wall is his neighbor's preoccupation
rather than his own. He would not waste time building a wall there, and he is somewhat averse to
wasting the day repairing it. There is the suggestion that he might prefer a closer relationship: let the
wall crumble and be friends rather than just neighbors. Nevertheless, he accepts his neighbor's
decision that there must be a wall between them. One cannot make friends unilaterally.
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FELICITA BURTON

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The relationship between the neighbors is amicable but guarded. The speaker admits that they do
not really understand the neighbor and apparently consider him more serious than they are.
Tempted but reluctant to tease or challenge the neighbor, the speaker holds back from suggesting
that "elves" move the stones and refrains from asking why the wall is necessary. The speaker seems
deferential to the neighbors opinion, perhaps out of respect and wanting to keep the peace.

Repairing the wall is a ritual that the two characters share. While the speaker asks themselves why
the wall is needed, they are the one who makes annual contact: "I let my neighbor know." They then
"agree" and meet to carry out the ritualized manual labor. In mutually engaging in this task, they are
equals.

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PROFHYDE-WHITE

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The narrator and the neighbor in the poem "The Mending Wall" have a curious relationship based on
proximity rather than amicability. They are not unfriendly towards each other, as shown in the
passage: "I let my neighbor know beyond the hill, and on a day we meet to walk the line" (12-13),
yet there is a barrier separating their personal connection, illustrated in the line "We keep the wall
between us as we go" (15).

This physical wall between the narrator and the neighbor represents the relational disunion between
the two figures perpetuated by the neighbor's predilection to maintain the detached, self-sufficient
demeanor he inherited from the culture of his ancestry: "He will not go behind his father's saying"
(43).
The narrator, however, is of a different mindset and does not like the barrier between him and his
neighbor. He considers it unnecessary to retain the wall between them and wonders if there is some
way to convince his neighbor to take it down. "If I could put a notion in his head. Why do (walls)
make good neighbors?" (line 29).

Ultimately, however, the narrator realizes the "wall" keeping him from a true relationship with his
neighbor cannot be removed except by mutual agreement.

There is a melancholy air to the conclusion of the poem in which the neighbor repeats, "Good fences
make good neighbors" (line 44). It seems unlikely that the narrator and neighbor will ever achieve
the genuine friendship for which the narrator yearns because the neighbor is uninterested in the
possibility of such a bond.

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LEE CAMPBELL

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Through this poem's narrator, Frost, a native New Englander, ruminates on the nature of fences in
life, beginning with the springtime ritual by two New England farmers to repair the stone wall that
divides their property after wintertime. The spring thaw has caused the ground to swell, exerting
pressure on the wall that results in some of the rocks coming loose from the structure. The last
section of the poem focuses most apparently on the relationship between the narrator and his
neighbor; when the narrator begins wondering aloud if a wall is really necessary, the neighbor
responds only with "Good fences make good neighbors," frustrating the narrator, who decides that
he is dealing with an "old-stone savage" who will only repeat yet again, "Good fences make good
neighbors."

What is the speaker's attitude toward the wall, in "Mending Wall"?

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MWESTWOOD, M.A.

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The speaker of Robert Frost's poem entitled "Mending Wall" does not see any need for a wall
between his property and that of his neighbor; he also finds walls unnatural.

In the opening line, the speaker suggests that "Something" in nature does not like a wall because it
causes the frozen ground to swell under this wall, spilling the "upper boulders" down as they create
gaps through which anyone could pass. Here the speaker suggests that it is not natural to have a
wall; after all, only man creates borders. For him and his neighbor, repairing this wall is but a "kind of
outdoor game" that they annually play as they try to balance the rocks from either side. In another
part of the poem, the speaker describes a place where there is no need for a wall:

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." (ll.23-27)

In his philosophical speculation, the speaker rejects as close-minded what the traditional neighbor
says. He describes his neighbor's bringing a stone "grasped firmly by the top/In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed" (ll.39-40) to fight. This man, he adds, "moves in [the] darkness" (l. 41). of
blind tradition because he "will not go behind his father's saying" (l.43). Instead, he habitually
follows the tradition of repairing the stone wall. Thus entrenched in the routine of repairing the wall,
the man repeats automatically the old saying of his father's, "Good fences make good neighbors"
(l.45).

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LORRAINE CAPLAN

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The narrator does not like walls, which is clear from the first line:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall (1)

He goes on to give examples of what nature wants to do to the wall, to spill the stones and make
large gaps in the wall, so we can infer that walls are unnatural as far as the narrator is concerned,
actually against nature.

He goes on to point out the foolishness of the wall, to no purpose, since there are no cows to keep
on one side of it and since his apple trees are not going to try to interfere with his neighbor's pine
trees, by straying over and eating the pine cones.

When he points this out to his neighbor, his neighbor responds that

Good fences make good neighbors (27)

He tries to point out that he would want to know the purpose of the wall before building one, what
it was meant to keep out and whom it might offend in its building. But no matter what he says, his
neighbor takes refuge in the same line.

The title is meant to be a somewhat ironic play on words, since in mending the wall with his
neighbor, the narrator is contributing to an endeavor that is not mending anything, but that is more
likely to promote bad feelings and offend nature itself.

How do the hunters damage the wall in "Mending Wall"?

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GREG JACKSON, M.A.

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According to the poet, it seems that hunters come by the wall during the winter and remove stones
in order to flush rabbits out of their hiding places within the wall. By tearing down sections of the
wall, the hunters destroy the rabbits' hiding places, thus allowing their dogs to chase them more
easily.

The subtle use of language in "I have come after them and made repair" (line 6) indicates that this is
a regular occurrence. The hunters have destroyed sections of the stone wall in the selfish pursuit of
their prey and apparently without concern for the landowners, who must work to repair the wall
each spring.

It is clear that the narrator does not think highly of the hunters who deliberately destroy the wall.
These hunters are unlike the natural forces of destruction, the freezing and thawing of the ground,
which destroys parts of the wall as well. The hunters, though, work in concert with these natural
forces of destruction. Like the mysterious "something" in the poem's first line, the hunters also don't
"love a wall."

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OLEN BRUCE

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In Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall," the narrator is inspecting the stone wall on his property for
damage. He writes that the hunters "have left not one stone on a stone," meaning that they have
not simply piled one stone on top of another. Instead, to flush the rabbits out of their hiding places
and "please the yelping dogs," the hunters have created gaps between places in the wall. No one
hears the hunters making these types of gaps, but the narrator and his neighbor find them in the
wall when they go to inspect it in the spring. The types of gaps the hunters make are very different
than the effects of the natural swelling of the frozen ground, which makes boulders spill out of the
top of the wall and makes very large gaps.