Mending wall by Robert Frost line by line explanation and analysis

 Summary

Some mysterious force in the nature, that is against the walls and boundaries. The ground has covered with frozen snow and it caused some damages to the wall. Stones get heated in the sun they expanded and eventually a large rock from the upper part has crumbled down. Thus forms a wide gap through which two persons can easily pass.

Hunters make use of the wall and damaged it again. When the speaker comes after the hunting of the rabbit for hunter’s barking dog, there is no single stone remains.

No one has seen or heard these gaps in the wall being made. But it is visible in the spring time, when it comes to fix the wall.

Speaker conveyed what has happened in the case of wall to his neighbour, who lives over the hill. One day the meet at the opposite side of the wall and replenish the wall between them again. The neighbour walks on his side of the wall, and the speaker on his side. Deal only with whatever rocks have fallen off the wall on their side. The boulders are repeatedly falling some are square and flat while others are perfectly round. Fixing them up is a herculean task indeed. Speaker says we are not supposed to leave until the work is done.

It is quite difficult to handle the rough rock, sometimes the fingers get damaged. It’s just another outside activity. Each of them shall remain on their side of the wall and nothing more.

In fact, there is no need for a wall here. On his neighbour’s side there is nothing but pine trees. While there is apple orchard in the speaker’s side. The speaker tells him that,  His apple trees shall never going to cross the wall and eat the cones under his pine trees. But, he only replies “good fences make good neighbours”.

The spring season has filled the speaker some fun and relaxation as he wants to tease his neighbour by asking about his views. Fences may be necessary where there are cattle or other animals capable of causing harm, but there are no such animals.

Before building the wall the speaker asked to know what should he keep in and what should he keep out and who is going to be offended by this. There is a mysterious force that that does not love the wall, that wants to pull it down.

Sometimes elves or other supernatural creatures are responsible for the gaps of the wall. But it’s not exactly elves or other fairy creatures, anyway the speaker wants his neighbour to figure it out.

The speaker sees the neighbour, lifting up a heavy stones and grasping them firmly on the top. Then he moves in a deep darkness. Not just the darkness of the woods or the trees above.  He does not want to think beyond the set idea about the world formed by his ancestors.  He would like to articulate this idea so well. Thus he says it again “good fences make good neighbours”.

 

 

Analysis

The poem is strikingly important mainly because of its novel thought and content. As the poem is at once personal and political. It can be interpreted in many different ways. Many critics have read symbolic meanings in the poem.  The wall, for them symbolises all man made barriers suggesting the divisions between nations, classes, racial and religious groups.

In fact it is this aspect of the poem that instantly appeals to us, more than any other thing in it. The thought of the poem is immediately relevant to modern man. One of the most controversial problems of our age is the kind of relationship that exist among nations. Most commonly issues begin in related to their geographical boundaries. History witnesses several issues between India and Pakistan similarly other countries regarding their boarders.  

This poem also expresses Frost’s philosophy of brotherhood and tolerance of honest living against the neighbour’s dogmatic assertion that ‘good fences make good neighbours’.