In the poem, the neighbor says to the author, “Good fences make good neighbors.” This confuses the author because throughout the duration of fixing the wall, he can’t help but think why there has to be a wall between the two of them. Although the neighbor has pine trees in his yard and the author has apples in his yard, he tends to feel like they aren’t suppose to share the apples or share the pine cones or even visit each other. In this poem I find the author to feel confused or depressed at the fact that him and his neighbor don’t have a good relationship.
I mentioned before that the neighbor had the quote, “Good fences make good neighbors.” He says it not only once, but twice in the poem. The author cannot figure out why he says that. In the poem he comments:
Why do they make good neighbors?
Where are the 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.
I think that the neighbor has a different approach to the whole idea of the wall. He says “Good fences make good neighbors,” and what he means by that is that a wall or a fence between one’s property can keep order within a neighborhood. For example, if there was a pet involved maybe it is a dog and the dog needed to go outside to dig holes or make a mess, the dog would do it on the property of the owner of that dog instead of the neighbor’s property. This is acceptable with both parties involved because the owner of the dog will take responsibility whereas the neighbor doesn’t have to deal with the situation. Or if a neighbor were mowing the lawn, the grass clippings would stay on his side of the wall instead of blowing onto the neighbor’s lawn and creating a mess and possibly some controversy.
I suppose one could also interpret the view of the neighbor as one who enjoys a wall between one’s property because it can be a meeting place between two neighbors. Like in the television show “Home Improvement” when the character Wilson and the main character Tim Allen always seem to meet in their backyards along the fence to talk about each other’s problems or just to have friendly conversation. It’s amazing to see such two different sides of a story told in one poem. Although the controversy may seem like a minor detail in the big picture of things, it seems to disturb the author.
