Analysis Of Mending Wall By Robert Frost

Every family tends to have traditions whether its during the holidays, birthdays or during certain seasons. The poem, “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost depicts the yearly tradition that two neighbors feud over. Questioning the author’s use of the phrases “mending fences” and “good fences make good neighbors” is this fence or wall a boundary that is necessary? The characters actions, relationship, opinions expressed throughout this poem and the cause for this yearly tradition provide examples of why boundaries are unnecessary in a world where unity is inevitable.

Although it was used more commonly in Frost’s time, the phrase “mending fences” means to repair relationships. Ironically there is no relationship repairing in this poem, instead the focus remains on the wall/fence that separates the narrator’s property from his neighbor’s. Every year nature runs its course, attempting to destroy the wall that naturally wouldn’t be there. And every year the narrator and his neighbor are forced to come together and rebuild this barrier. The narrator eventually comes to a realization, “There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” He, the narrator, believes that in fact both of them don’t need a wall, he asks why should there be a wall, when

While the narrator tries to make his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall because it will just get destroyed again, his neighbor only responds with “Good fences make good neighbors.”