Themes in Mending Wall
- Borders and Limits. “Mending Wall” is a poem about borders and limitations. ...
- The Value of Work. The work that the speaker and his neighbor do is ritualistic. ...
- Customs, Traditions, and Modernity. Throughout the poem, the poet indirectly raises the question of the possibility of change. ...
What is the message of the poem Mending Wall?
The themes or messages implicit in the poem “Mending Wall” are various, but they have been well-integrated in the poem by the superb artistic skill of the author. The poet brings in the two characters — one young man and another elderly man — representing two opposite views regarding walls between the lands of two people.
What is “Mending Wall?
As the speaker describes it, the work of “Mending Wall” is ritualistic: each year, the speaker and the neighbor walk along the wall together and repair the sections that have been damaged by frost or by hunters over the previous year. It is hard, taxing work: by the end, their hands are chapped from it.
What are some of the best Mending Wall quotes?
Altman, Toby. "Mending Wall." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 23 Jan 2019. Web. 26 Dec 2021. 4 And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 9 To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 11 But at spring mending-time we find them there. 14 And set the wall between us once again. 15 We keep the wall between us as we go.
How many words are in lines 1-4 of Mending Wall?
Unlock all 534 words of this analysis of Lines 1-4 of “Mending Wall,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover. Plus so much more...
What is the purpose of the wall in Mending Wall?
The wall in the poem 'Mending Wall' represents two viewpoints of two different persons, one by the speaker and the other by his neighbor. Not only does the wall act as a divider in separating the properties, but it also acts as a barrier to friendship, communication.
What are two central themes of Mending Wall?
Mending Wall ThemesMan and the Natural World. Our speaker takes great pains to describe the setting of this New England countryside. ... Tradition and Customs. ... Language and Communication. ... Exploration. ... Versions of Reality.
What is theme of the poem?
Theme is the lesson or message of the poem. Does the poem have something to say about life or human nature? That message would be the theme, and there can be more than one theme for a single poem, even something as short as 'We Real Cool'!
What is the philosophy of life portrayed in the poem Mending Wall?
The poem considers the contradictions in life and humanity, including the contradictions within each person, as man "makes boundaries and he breaks boundaries". It also examines the role of boundaries in human society, as mending the wall serves both to separate and to join the two neighbors, another contradiction.
What is the theme of the mending wall?
A widely accepted theme of "The 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, nonetheless.
What does the wall in the poem "Mending Wall" represent?
The wall in the poem 'Mending Wall' represents two view points of two different persons, one by the speaker and the other by his neighbour. Not only does the wall act as a divider in separating the properties, but also acts as a barrier to friendship, communication.
What is the mending wall form?
Similarly, how does the mending walls form relate to its meaning? The form of "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost is stichic rather than stanzaic. The term "stichic" means that the poem consists of lines of equal length printed continuously rather than divided up into separate stanzas. The meter of the poem is blank verse.
Why did the speaker say it was not necessary to mend the wall?
Though the speaker argued that in the existing circumstances it was not necessary to mend the wall because he had an apple orchard and his neighbor a pine garden. “He is all pine and I am apple orchard.”. These gardens are not likely to run into each other. But his neighbour would not listen to him.
What is the theme of a poem?
Theme is a comment, an observation or insight about the subject. The subject of a poem may be a flower, but its theme may be a comment on the fleeting nature of existence. It is not necessary that a work must have a theme. Some work, like a detective story, may be written primarily for entertainment. There can be more than one theme in a work of art. A skilful artist can integrate several themes in a single work of art. The themes or messages implicit in the poem “Mending Wall ” are various, but they have been well-integrated in the poem by the superb artistic skill of the author.
Why is the contradiction necessary?
This contradiction is a necessary one because the statements are made by two people of opposite character, and different ages. From their view point, both are right. Man cannot live without walls, boundaries, and self-limitations and limits. But yet man resents all bonds, and he becomes happy if the boundary line or wall is removed. This is a paradox and a reality in human life.
What is the poem "Mending Wall" about?
At its heart, “Mending Wall” is a poem about borders—the work it takes to maintain them and the way they shape human interactions. The speaker and the speaker's neighbor spend much of the poem rebuilding a wall that divides their properties. As they do so, they debate the function of the wall and how it affects their relationship.
When was the Mending Wall written?
“Mending Wall” was written in the early 1910s, in a transitional period in American life. Following a century of mass immigration and industrialization, the United States had become a substantially more diverse and populous place than it had been at its founding—and a substantially more urban place as well. The gentlemen farmers who founded American democracy had been supplanted by fractious urban political parties—alongside populist rural political movements. Further, the country had expanded from the Atlantic coastline all the way to the Pacific in recent memory: the frontier had been officially declared closed in 1890.
How many words are in the poem "Mending Wall"?
Unlock all 396 words of this analysis of Enjambment in “Mending Wall,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
How many words are in the line analysis of Mending Wall?
Unlock all 387 words of this analysis of Lines 43-45 of “Mending Wall,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
How many lines are there in the mending wall?
"Mending Wall" does not follow a particular poetic form. It isn't a sonnet, for example, or a villanelle. Instead, it is simply a single stanza of 46 lines, written in blank verse.
What is the meter of blank verse?
Although blank verse is an iambic meter, the poem’s first line opens with a trochee: A reader expects a first line to establish the poem’s meter, and for variations to that meter to come later. But Frost waits to establish his poem’s dominant meter until mid-way through the poem’s first line.
What is the act of meditation in the poem?
At the heart of the poem’s meditation is a routine, even monotonous act: the speaker and the neighbor pick up rocks and put them back on the wall. The act is reminiscent of a famous myth, with which Frost—classically educated at Harvard—would likely have known intimately: the myth of Sisyphus.
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.
What is the mending wall analogy?
With this, Frost uses the mending wall as an analogy for the interpersonal barriers that we create against other individuals on the basis of tradition, despite the fact that such barriers are unnecessary, unnatural, and antithetical to our well-being.
Why does the neighbor insist on the ritual?
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.
Why do fences make good neighbors?
Good fences might make good neighbors not simply because they set up property boundaries, but because their maintenance brings the people together. Last Updated by eNotes Editorial on May 14, 2020.
What does the speaker make a compelling case for?
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.
What does the speaker's neighbor say about fences?
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.
What is the theme of the poem in Masterplots?
The writer of the Masterplots commentary on the poem notes that the theme of the poem is barriers. To a great extent, that is correct. The action described is that of the speaker and his neighbor doing the annual repair work on the wall between their properties. This wall sets up a barrier to keep their animals in and to keep each other out.
Changing Social Traditions
The main conflict of Frost's poem is between the speaker and the old neighbor. One thinks the wall is pointless and represents a never-ending struggle of futility.
The Complexity of Human Relationships
The speaker mentions that the neighbor's words come from his father. His only reason for rebuilding the wall every year is that he has heard the words good fences make good neighbors again and again from a source of authority.
What does the poem "The Wall" mean?
As one first reads the poem, the wall seems an extension of the barriers between the two, something that separates them. The neighbor often repeats the saying: "‘Good fences make good neighbors.". This suggests that the point of the wall is keeping neighbors separated from one another. The poet points out though that:
Does the speaker find the wall unnatural?
And even though the speaker finds the wall unnatural, it is he who lets his neighbor know it is time to mend the wall. So, it is ambiguous as to whether he really doesn't want the wall there. His neighbor may be thinking the same thing. Do we need this wall? Does this ritual of gathering to mend the wall serve as our only means of communication? And if so, it is ironic that the ritual to mend this physical barrier is also a ritual of connection.
