Another Metaphor in the Wall

The wall is not the only futile boundary represented in the poem.  There is also a boundary between the speaker and his actions.  He knows that the wall is futile and yet he is incapable of articulating this to his neighbor.  It would seem that he takes offense to the wall: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know  […] / to whom I was like to give offense” (32-4), surely he would expect the same courtesy from his neighbor.  There is other evidence in the poem to support the notion that the speaker does not like or want the wall and yet he does not directly confront his neighbor to express his discontent with their chore.  The speaker believes it not his responsibility to tell his neighbor how he feels.  He arbitrarily justifies this by telling himself “I’d rather / He said it for himself” (37-8).  Also, he does not say he wants to confront his neighbor with his thoughts about what it is that does not love a wall, he would rather “put a notion in his head” (29).  The speaker has created a boundary in his own mind that makes him think that it is his neighbor’s responsibility to figure out what is in his is head.

        It is not just the speaker who is playing this game with himself.  The neighbor also has a game that allows him to avoid confronting his own feelings.  The only line that the neighbor speaks is “[g]ood fences make good neighbors” (27).  He says this twice as if it were a mantra or affirmation to help him avoid thinking about the necessity of the wall.  The speaker wants his neighbor to think beyond a simple saying, but to no avail.  The neighbor is set in his ways; he has built a wall in his own mind that he mends by repeating his father’s saying.

The boundaries that exist in the minds of the two neighbors are another thing represented by both the wall and “something.”  Both metaphors signify the boundaries in the neighbors’ minds because it suggests a duality between that which is human and that which is nature.  It also gestures towards a point at which they both collide.  The two neighbors have mental walls that prevent them from admitting that the physical wall in the poem is just a pile of rocks.  The notion that the wall is just a pile of rocks is “something” that does not love a wall.  This notion collides with their perceptions that they need to maintain the wall.  The metaphor of the wall used to represent their inabilities to overtly realize the futility of the wall is more obvious.  The mental blocks that these two characters experience, particularly that of the speaker, are not uncommon human feelings.  I have often carried on futile activities in order to avoid confrontation and reasoned that the useless activity I persisted at was somehow necessary.  It is human nature to act redundantly to avoid confrontation.  The experience the poet figure relates in the poem “Mending Wall” is a human experience and a natural experience.  Underlying the complex interrelationships of the metaphors in the poem exists a sentiment that humans and nature are continuous.  As pointless as it is for humans to fight nature, it is equally pointless to distinguish humans from nature.  Nature does not love a wall and “spills the upper boulders in the sun” (3), and it is also evident in the poem that the speaker does not love a wall.

When the poet figure confronts a trait in his neighbor that is similar to his own denial he sees it as black and negative.  Despite the arbitrariness of the wall there is an underlying hubris in the speaker that prevents him from backing down in his confrontation with both nature and his nature.  When he sees the same hubris in his neighbor he sees someone “who moves in darkness” (41).  To move in darkness is to move in blindness.  In this case the neighbor is blind to the uselessness of both fighting to maintain the wall and of its existence.  The subconscious of the speaker is perhaps aware of this blind devotion to a ridiculous ritual and to break the silence; to speak openly of their sightless chore is to admit that he also has been blind to the futility of trying to overcome nature.  One cannot overcome that of which one is apart.  

It is doubtful that Frost’s only intent with this poem was to make a statement about the duality of humans and nature, but because the poem recounts a human experience that readers can relate to the complexities reveal more than deliberate statements of truth.  That this poem is often read as a banal statement of the inanity of boundaries and cherished for the moralistic nugget it provides only further adds to its mystique.  As such the poem can also be seen as a metaphor for the walls in the minds of the readers who fail to realize the richness of this poem.