ROBERT LEE FROST: 'MENDING WALL'



ROBERT LEE FROST: ‘MENDING WALL’

                           Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
                                                That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it.
                                                And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
                                                And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
                                    5          The work of hunters is another thing:
                                                I have come after them and made repair
                                                Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
                                                But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
                                                To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
                                    10       No one has seen them made or heard them made,
                                                But at spring mending-time we find them there.
                                                I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
                                                And on a day we meet to walk the line
                                                And set the wall between us once again.
                                    15       We keep the wall between us as we go.
                                                To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
                                                And some are loaves and some are nearly balls
                                                We have to use a spell to make them balance:
                                                ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
                                    20       We wear our figures rough with handing them.
                                                Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
                                                One on a side. It comes to little more:
                                                There where it is we do need the wall:
                                                He is all pines and I am apple orchard.
                                    25       My apple trees will never get across
                                                And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him
                                                He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbor’.
                                                Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
                                                If I could put a notion in his head:
                                    30       ’Why do they make neighbor?  Isn’t
                                                Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
                                                Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
                                                What I was walling in or walling out,
                                                And to whom I was like to give offence.
                                    35       Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
                                                That wants it down. I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
                                                But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
                                                He said it for himself. I see him there,
                                                Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
                                    40       In each hand like an old-stone savage armed.
                                                He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
                                                Not of woods only, and the shade of trees.
                                                He will not go behind his father’s saying,
                                                And he likes having thought of it so well
                                    45       He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.


POET’S BACKGROUND

Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco California in the year 1874. Robert Lee Frost rose from a humble family background, to become a celebrated elder statesman of poetry in America from 1914 until his death in 1963. In 1885, when Robert was only eleven years old he lost his father, and his family had to leave California for New England where he schooled and graduated from high school in 1891 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He later studied as occasional student at Dartmough College, Harvard.
In 1984, Robert was married to Elinor White. The marriage was blessed with four children but hard pressed by poverty, depression and distress. In 1912, Robert took his family to England in search of greener pasture.  In quick succession, he published A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). The favorable review and recommendation of these books by Ezra Pound prompted their reception by the America public. From the sale of his books and teaching as well as lecturing at various schools and colleges, Robert was able to achieve financial comfort to cater for his family.
His poetry can be classified into nature lyrics, dramatic narrative poems, hortatory, didactic poetry, and poems of commentary. Robert was noted for images and metaphors drawn from simple natural phenomena; for his blending of traditional verse forms with America local vocabulary and speech rhythms; and for his use of a persona that is close to nature and deals with life ‘in a spirit of compassionate realism Robert Frost died in 1963.

BACKGROUND TO THE POEM

The setting of this poem is the hilly terrain of New England with its characteristic plantations of pine and apple trees. The usual practice of the planters was to demarcate their plantations by setting a wall (fence) between theirs and others. This was meant to prevent the trespassing and maintain good neighborliness. In the poem, Frost uses the mask of the poetic persona to argue that such fences are useful only when there are cows (lines 30 and 31) that may cause some destruction to the plantation and that such fences should be pulled down if they are meant to fence off men because no man can be an island ‘entire of itself’. This fact of nature is expressed in the indefinable ‘something’ that hates a wall (line 1). For emphatic reason, this line is repeated in line 35.
Frost’s argument in categorically stated between lines 23 and 26.
           
                                    There where it is we do 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.

In the main, the poem separates on the principle of binary opposition love / hate; make gaps / make repair; pull down / build up separation / unity individualism / collectivism, etc.

THEME

The themes that are contained in this poem are: (a) that fences which are meant for protective functions do not only serve for physical separation of a man from his neighbor but also cause psychological distancing; (b) that fencing is against nature and man, symbolically represented in ‘something’ and ‘the work of hunters’ that are responsible for making ‘the gaps’ in the wall, (c) that the idea of fencing is against the philosophy of the brotherhood of man and mutual co-existence; (d) that the time and efforts used in mending the wall, should have been spent doing some more profitable things.
Simply put, the poem is an articulate expression of the fact that, beyond the protective function which the fence provides, it also has psychological implications for the family fenced up.              




FORM AND STRUCTURE

This is a 45 line poem which is not segmented into stanzas. It is also a blank verse modeled after the American speech rhythm. This simple narrative poem seeks to comment on the New Englanders’ axiom: ‘Good fence make good neighbors’. As it is the characteristic of Frost’s poverty, some of the verses contain two sentences or two structures. Fragments: lines 9, 22, 30, 31, 36 and 38.
The poem also uses punctuation marks heavily and effectively.it is perhaps, unbroken into stanza in order to show that a Wall is normally a long unbroken structure. Quotations marks are used to mark off a word specially used, such as ‘Elves’, and direct statements as in ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned’. This gives the poem the dramatic flavor it has.

LANGUAGE AND TECHNIQUE

 The language of this poem is fascinatingly accessible. The simplicity of the language and the accessibility of the poem are as a result of the use of appropriate diction and images that are not far-fetched. Every lexical item used is in the line with the subject matter. Frost introduces quote speeches as a device of making the poem natural, dramatic and credible.  Of course, it is made robust in its use of language by employing figurative expressions among which are:

                                                Alliteration:                        lines 10, 17, 20, 32, and 33
                                                Assonance:              lines 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, etc.
                                                Litotes:                     lines 1 and 35
Euphemism:                        lines 4, 7, 21, 36   
Metaphor:               lines 17 and 24
                                                Repetition:              lines 1 and 35; 27 and 45
                                                Rhetorical question:        lines 30 and 31
                                                Personification:                 lines 25 26, 28 and 29
                                                Synecdoche:                       lines 20 and 29
                                                Smile:                                                line 40

In the use of imagery, the images created in the poem include those of fields of fruits, hunting, breaking and mending. All this is in agreement with the physical terrain and customary practice of New England, the setting of the poem. In conclusion, It is necessary to make the point that ‘spring’ is used equivocally in the poem: first, to mean the season of the year when vegetation begins; second, to mean the time that mending of wall begins. This is why ‘spring is the mischief’ in the persona (line 28). The use of quotation marks is also indicative of the conversational nature of the poem.

REVISION QUESTIONS

1.     What is the attitude of the persona to building of walls?
2.     Discuss the language and style of this poem.
3.     According to the poem, what are the advantages and disadvantages of walls?
4.      Frost’s ‘Mending Walls’ is a social comment on the New England society. Comment.
5.     Identify and discuss the figures of speech used in the poem.

By Eguriase S. M Okaka.

Comments

Efua Sutherland: The Marriage of Anansewa,The Wedlock of the gods By Zulu Sofola, The gods Are Not

The Song of the Women of My Land By Oumar Farouk Sesay

Raider of the Treasure Trove By Lade Worsonu

Let Me Die Alone By John K. Kargbo (Thematic Preoccupation)