Comment 65 of 66, added on June 13th, 2009 at 4:07 AM.

Robert Frost is a well-known poet, with many famous poems such as ‘The Road Not Taken’ and ‘Out, Out--’ but the poem that has been chosen to be analysed is called ‘Mending Wall’. The writer of the poem, Robert Frost, was born in San Francisco and as years passed he moved to Massachusetts were his father died from tuberculosis, after which he started writing poetry. After moving to New Hampshire and failing to publish his poetry books, he consequently fell into poverty. In 1913 his first published book established him as an author and his fame grew as years passed. Most of Frost’s poems reflect Rural England and convey a compelling aspect of imagery. Imagery is just one of components in his poem ‘Mending Wall’. It also features an inspiring theme, heavy use of metaphors and good use of repetition.

Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" is a poem about the walls (or barriers) that people use to avoid the outside world and its problems. The two men meet each spring to repair the wall that has been damaged by the “frozen-ground-swell”. Frost shows how isolating oneself leads to hostility toward others. The narrator, who doesn’t think they need the wall, hopes to convince the narrator that "There where it is we do not need the wall." The neighbour repeats his father's saying, "Good fences make good neighbors." The differing views of beliefs, like many relationships in our modern world, are never resolved because of how the two men view one another's ideas. The narrator sees the neighbour as an "old stone savage armed." The other man refuses to argue in favour of neighbourliness.
In this poem, Frost examines the way in which we interact with one another and how we function as a whole. Man has difficulty communicating and relating to one another and as a result, we have a tendency to close ourselves off from others. In the lack of effective communication, we avoid any meaningful communication with others in order to gain privacy. Frost's use of language reinforces the idea of isolation.
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
When writing about the wall's annual collapse, Frost uses the word "gaps" to portray the holes in the wall. Yet, this could also stand for the "gaps" that the neighbours are creating between each other. "No one has seen them made or heard them made" but somehow the gaps naturally exist and are always found when the two get together.

Sam from China