Commentarty: Mending Wall by Robert Frost

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                9/13/2007

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Commentary on Robert Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’

At first glance ‘Mending Wall’ is a simple, pleasant poem containing all the aspects of a lyric that is sweet to the ear and able to give the reader or listener a ‘feel good’ sensation. It has all the right elements that a good poem (as defined by the following, admittedly limited, criteria) should have, viz alliteration, assonance, rhythm, structure, tone and of course, the ubiquitous iambic pentameter. Is it really anymore than that?

In this commentary I shall argue and try to demonstrate that ‘Mending Wall’ is in fact a very profound and thought-provoking piece of work. It not only provokes deep thought and argument but also makes the reader question his own values.  

When President John F Kennedy inspected the Berlin Wall he quoted the poem’s first line: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”. This shows that the poem had quite a significant impact on the president, and that he perceived the poem to be about political walls and not just a wall between two farmers in rural New England.

The Russians also saw this in Frost’s poem, and we know this because when ‘Mending Wall’ was first published in Russia, they omitted the first line: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

This shows that Frost’s poem about a neighbour who insists on having a wall between his property and the next is simply a metaphor for the walls and barriers that we set in society. This commentary will explain some of the techniques that Frost uses and also the ideas which he wished to convey in his poem “Mending Wall”.

The title “Mending Wall” has aroused many questions for critics; what did Frost mean by calling his poem “Mending Wall”? Some say that it is a personification of the wall; others say that it is the name of the annual process of rebuilding the wall. However, I think that the title “Mending Wall” comes from the Anglo-Saxon proverb: ‘Mending fences’, which means to reconcile a friendship. This is ironic because in the poem, mending the wall means separating the two neighbours and not them becoming friends.

The first line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”, shows Frost’s use of inversion to pose a question. What is the something that does not love a wall? Here, Frost meant the ‘something’ to be a natural cause for the wall to break down. This line has so many meanings that it is thought of as a wonderful line in many people’s minds. Not only does it bring the question, ‘Who or what doesn’t love the wall’ to our minds, but it also makes us think of the different kinds of walls that there in this world. Political walls between countries, social barriers between races, sexes and religions and also, the walls that we build personally around ourselves to prevent us from being hurt by someone.

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Throughout the poem we are unsure who the person telling the story is. Is it a narrator or is Robert Frost himself? The line “That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it” supports the idea that it is Robert Frost telling the readers the story. Frozen-ground-swell brings the image of frost to my mind and this may be a pun on his own name. He may be implying that it is he himself that does not love the wall and so it may be Frost talking throughout the poem.

Lines 3, 4 and 5 are all examples of how Frost uses ...

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