Poetry Analysis Essay - "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Eun Hae Lee

Dr. Wexler

English 495 ESM

23 September 2013

Community in Property Ownership

          In “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” Zev Trachtenberg argues that “the social contract tradition prompts us to think of society in terms of the cooperative human enterprise of protecting individuals' interests” (Trachtenberg 114). In other words, a society is only formed when there are formal voluntary agreements and associations between people – namely laws and rights – that protect people and their property. Property can be accused of dividing human relationships in the same way that it divides the actual land on which human beings reside. However, one can also argue that the best kind of individuality can only be achieved in the comforts of one's own property where one has the freedom to live in whatever way he/she chooses. The mutual protection of this division of property can thus be seen as the best kind of community and human interaction. In his poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost tackles the issue of maintaining individual freedom through mutual understanding and property ownership, suggesting that the division, not the bringing together, of property is what brings people closer in a community.

          The poem contains two characters: the narrator and the neighbor, who own adjacent farms and meet every Spring to repair the stone wall that divide their properties. An initial reading and popular interpretation of the poem has the narrator take a skeptical stand towards the existence of the wall while the neighbor remains firm on the benefit of the division. The neighbor's slogan that “good fences make good neighbors” is not given to much disparaging interpretation; the neighbor is pro-property and he will not budge on this opinion (46). However, the narrator's attitude is a bit more ambiguous, and is not as simple as an initial reading would suggest. The narrator's attitude is best expressed through the playful way he claims that “something there is that doesn't love a wall,” suggesting that the yearly upending of the stone wall is caused by natural forces (1). The narrator repeats this phrase throughout the poem, adopting it as a counter-slogan to the neighbor that seemingly personifies his stand on the issue of property ownership: the narrator is anti-property because nature does not support it. The fact that “something” sends “the frozen ground-swell under it, / And spills the upper boulders in the sun” proves that natural forces dictate that people should not have divisions on their lands (1-2). As a result, these same natural forces forcibly remove the obstacle dividing their farms.

          However, upon closer reading, a question arises. If the narrator is so against the mending of the wall that natural forces dictate as wrong, then why does he bother to inform his neighbor every year of its broken state? If the narrator supports the destruction of the stone wall, then is it not more logical that he simply ignore the broken wall until his more serious pro-wall neighbor calls attention to it? But no, the narrator is the one who takes initial action:

                             But at spring mending-time we find them there.
                             I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
                            And on a day we meet to walk the line
                            And set the wall between us once again (11-14).

The narrator is the one who lets the neighbor know about the wall and proactively sets a date to meet in order to work on the wall together.

          Additionally, the “game” that the narrator keeps referring to when referring to the wall can be read as playful banter. The mischievous tone and casual attitude of the narrator also supports his pro-property stance as it suggests that the narrator is not completely serious when suggesting they remove the stone wall that divides their land (21). Spring, as he claims, “brings the mischief in [him]” and can explain the reason for his questioning of the existence of the wall (28). He mentions elves as a possible culprit for the broken stone wall, only serving to lessen the seriousness of the situation. He banters with his neighbor because it is the social norm to converse with your neighbor. The banter and the annual fixing of the stone wall is the “out-door game” that the narrator refers to; it is a yearly tradition that keeps him and his neighbor on good terms with one another (21). Thus, the fixing of the wall is simply a tradition, a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving; it is a day that serves to reaffirm their agreement to maintain their division. Both the narrator and neighbor agree on this day, every year, that the division of property is what keeps them good neighbors and good members of the society they belong to. Protecting the other's property and, as a result, their individual freedom and rights, is what helps them stay good neighbors. As the narrator explains, “He is all pine and I am apple orchard;” the stone wall allows for the pine and apple to remain as themselves (24).

          In “Architecture in Frost and Stevens,” David Spurr argues that “The wall also has a sepulchral function, as a kind of memorial to the generations from which it is inherited, just as the “saying” of the neighbor is inherited from his father, and the ritual repetition of this saying accompanies the annual rite of wall-mending” (Spurr 75). The neighbor is obviously guilty of this “repetition,” as it is the only response he gives all throughout the poem: 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" (44-46). However, the neighbor is not the only one guilty of repeating a “saying.” The narrator is just as guilty. His annual greeting can be represented by the repetition of the line “something there is that doesn't love a wall." This back-and-forth and repetition of the two slogans serves to emphasize the absurdity of the idea that the wall can be torn down. Every year, the narrator tosses his line to his neighbor with the knowledge that the reply would be that the wall is an absolute necessity. It is a ritual, a dance, a tradition between the two neighbors; one that probably goes back to their fathers and their fathers' fathers. In the end, the wall is always mended. And the two farmers can always trust that they will be back again next year to fix the same wall again.

Works Cited

Spurr, David. "Architecture in Frost and Stevens." Journal of Modern Literature 28.3 (2005): 72- 86.         Project MUSE. Web. 20 Sep. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

Trachtenberg, Zev. "Good Neighbors Make Good Fences: Frost's 'Mending Wall'." Philosophy and    Literature 21.1 (1997): 114-122. Project MUSE. Web. 20 Sep. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.