“Good Fences make good Neighbors”
Robert Frost’s Mending Wall taps into the lives of two neighbors and the importance of the fence between their properties. The original purpose of a fence was to keep the dog from running away, and to keep the farm animals together. Frost shows us how the fence keeps the peace in a neighborhood and shows the boundary between the two. Frost taps into the mind of human beings and how an external barrier has an effect on the human psyche. A barrier makes people aware of where their place is.
In the first stanza, Frost writes “something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” Frost makes it a point to ask who doesn’t like a wall. Who doesn’t enjoy privacy? This becomes an important part of the poem as it unfolds because privacy is what the entire poem is about. Privacy is the root of a good and stable relationship. In line 10 of the poem, Frost write “ no one has seen them made or heard them made, but at spring mending-time we find them there.” During “mending-time” a fence appears. Mending-time is a period in which something is being repaired. After the cold weather has come and gone it was time to repair the fence. The fence is composed of various sizes of rocks, one on top of the other to build the fence.
Frost is tapping into the invisible fence that people naturally place around themselves similarly to the invisible fence in around a house. All human beings have a barrier around themselves. It is human nature for people to withhold their emotions from others. In Mending Wall, the neighbor in favor of the wall is a person who is holding back and requires the distance to maintain composure. The two neighbors are described as the apple and the pine trees.
The Essay on Frosts mending Wall Vs Floyds the Wall
... they serve the same purpose and both Frost and Floyd oppose them. Robert Frost's Mending Wall is a very popular poem. This poem ... teachers. In this song, as in Mending Wall, a barrier is discussed, but this time it is a phsycological barrier instead of ... ignorant neighbor insists that they mend the wall by saying "Good fences make good neighbors."(Frost) The neighbor repeats this saying although ...
People know that they shouldn’t intrude or trespass on to any person’s property. The two neighbors do not have mutual feelings about the fence. One of the neighbors says to the other, why do we need this fence? The other neighbor replies,” good fences make good neighbors.” The fence is a source of astriction.
One day, while I was playing catch with Aly, a girl I babysit. I realized that Aly’s neighbors made a border between the divisions of the two backyards. The border was made with metal bars stuck into the ground with an orange string through it. That day had been the first day I had seen the barrier; it wasn’t there before. I immediately assumed that her neighbors didn’t want us in their yard even if it was an accident or that they didn’t like when we had to go into their yard to get a ball or frisbee. I was offended. Every time the ball got even close to the barrier, my teeth cringed. Aly thought nothing of it but the fence gave me a sense of tension. Later that day when Aly’s mom Mindy came home, I asked her about the string of orange that was bugging me all day. Mindy laughed because she was surprised that reacted so strongly to the barrier. She also said that it was probably because the neighbors might have been planning to put a fence up. I didn’t understand the purpose of the fence similarly to the neighbor in the poem. I felt there was no reason to have a fence. It made me uncomfortable.
Then I thought to myself, could I have been intruding the neighbor’s property? Do good fences really make good neighbors? The fence for me sent a clear message; do not enter our backyard. The natural barrier of trees, rocks, and shrubs that had been there was not enough to separate the properties. In the poem, the two neighbors have a barrier of apple trees and pine trees and large stones. However, when the spring came, they had to mend the wall between the two homes.
A home, the place we go to rest and renew, is private. A home is something people treasure. A home is a person’s barrier from the world. People prepare themselves for the world inside a place called home. Therefore, the neighbor makes a lot of sense in saying that good fence makes for good neighbors. Frost is also suggesting that people should be concerned about what is going on within their own homes and not their neighbors.
The Essay on What Do People Want in Life?
What do people want in life? Different people have different perspective on what they want in life. So, what is the common thing that everyone ... wants in life ...
A fence has four walls but no roof. People do not completely isolate themselves. Frost writes, “and on a day we meet to walk the line.” People communicate when they are ready to. The neighbor is intelligent in saying that it is best to barriers around your life. There are many aspects that cause people to have barriers around their life.
Religion is an important part of life that has a major impact the decisions people make in life. Everyday, people are faced with important decisions to make. The ethics and morals that influence the decisions people must make are closely linked with the barriers around their lives. Some religions demand more dedication than other for example, Islam. Islam is a religion that forces a person to have a border around their life. Because of Islam’s strict requirements on the type of food to eat, dress code, code of ethics, social relationships, martial relationship, and many others, a Muslim will go about life accordingly. A Catholic nuns or priests have made sacred commitments with God to remain celibate.
Although religion isn’t a topic directly in the poem, it is a bigger idea that can be derived from the fence between two the neighbors. For many people, a barrier, boundaries, are helpful because they serve as a guide throughout life. Religion provides hope, direction, and motivation throughout ones life. Religion also gives many people a support system to rely on and also respects the privacy of its followers.
When looking at poetry, every person has a different perspective of what the person is reading. Each poem has a different meaning for different people. In the Mending Wall, I walked away with these thoughts. Frost’s poem made me aware of what I felt when I saw the orange string divided between the two houses and now I have a greater perspective of what is means to respect others desire for privacy.
