MENDING WALL : A POEM BY ROBERT FROST

MENDING WALL is a popular poem of Robert Frost. It is also one of the most antholozised poems. A typical Robert Frost poem picks up a simple example or an ordinary event out of day to day life and makes it complex by breathing multi layered meanings into it. The conclusion of Frost poem is never easy. It is always open-ended. Robert Frost has this enigma of hiding profundity beneath simplicity.

MENDING WALL takes the theme of a wall between two neighbours in order to protect their respective properties. The wall separates two neighbours. It also joins them when it gets damaged due to natural or man-made causes and the two neighbours come together to mend it. Out of the two neighbours one is modern in approach and marvels at the very need of building a wall itself thinking such separation as obstacle in human bonding and wants no barriers at all. The other neighbor is old in approach and gives value to the tradition of ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ . Nature doesn’t approve of such boundaries as it keeps causing damages to such walls. The two neighbours mend the separating wall once a year (in spring). One neighbor doesn’t find any logic in creating such barriers whereas the other doesn’t find any logic in dismantling such barriers. The wall separates two orchards. One neighbor has apple orchard and the other has that of pine. Trees don’t need boundaries. They don’t need to be contained. Cows need to be contained but neither of the neighbours has any cows. They still keep the wall. Men create boundaries.

The poem has multiple meanings. Wall can also be taken as a symbol of identity . It also denotes limitation. The neighbour who doesn’t like the wall also mends it and therefore confuses the perception of a reader whether he really is in favour of the wall being removed or enjoys its status quo.

The beauty of the poem is how you interpret it.