While the neighbours set about mending the wall it suggests that they are forced to be close and spend time with each other as they repair the wall. Although they mend the wall together neither of the men cross the barrier whilst fixing it so there is still a barrier firmly between them at all times as they separate themselves onto their own territories as they work from either side of the wall. With the poem Frost is very successful with his use of poetic imagery. Frost continually tells us about the poor condition of the wall which could also be used in describing the relationship between the two neighbours. It appears that neither neighbour enjoys the job of mending the wall however. Instead of building a stronger wall which they know will not fall apart, they repair the wall in the same way knowing that the wall will fall apart again during the winter and in twelve months time they will also be faced with the same task which they hate so much. The speaker is also instigates the work every spring which shows that perhaps that he and the neighbour does not want a constant separation from the speaker as he fails to suggest a better way to stop the wall falling apart so they can avoid this situation.
The speaker continually tells us about the phrase by which his neighbour constantly refers to which is, “Good fences make good neighbours”. The neighbour looks upon the idea of isolation from the speaker as a healthier option, which we learn that the speaker finds it with great difficulty to understand.
The neighbours are portrayed as two very different people, which can be seen with the layout of their land. The speaker is said to have apple trees in his land which appear welcoming. This tree is compared to the secluded neighbour’s land which consists of pine trees. The pine trees are seen to offer shelter and are also larger which would offer a greater amount of privacy from the outside world.
The speaker subsequently later in the poem decides to join in with his neighbour and also repeats the saying which his neighbour has said so often “good fences make good neighbours” which shows that he has maybe also came to the conclusion that the neighbour is extremely anti-social and does favour having minimal contact with the outside world. The speaker however agrees as he does not want to generate any further unnecessary tension between himself and the neighbour. With having the “wall” or “fence” in place he does so then to be a “good neighbour”.
The wall could be seen as to be having detrimental effects on the speaker as he does not favour this and wants to grow a friendship with his neighbour which is however rejected but also at the same time the act of mending the wall every year is the very thing that brings them together.
Another Robert Frost poem which shows emotional barriers between people is “Home burial”. The poem may not be as popular as “Mending wall” but this is Frosts most critically acclaimed and intensively analyzed narrative. Frosts deals with barriers between people yet again, in this case a husband and wife who recently lost their first child and who both handle grief in their separate ways.
“Home Burial” is an intensely dramatic poem about a bereaved and increasingly estranged married couple. The husband has just returned from burying their young son in a family plot of the sort that served northern New Englanders as cemeteries for generations. He mounts the stairs toward his wife “until she cowered under him.” What follows is a bitter exchange. The wife, unable to understand his failure to express grief vocally, accuses him of indifference to their loss; he, rankled by what he considers a groundless charge, tries blunderingly to assure her, but they fail to comprehend each other. At the end of the poem she is threatening to leave and find someone else who can console her, while he threatens, “I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!”
The wife in the poem has watched with a kind of horror his energetic digging at the gravesite; he has made the gravel “leap up . . . and land so lightly.” She cannot understand that he has converted his frustration into a relevant and necessary physical activity, as men have traditionally learned to do. Nor does she realize that a seemingly callous remark of his about the rotting of birch fences may well constitute an oblique way of referring to the demise of the child that he has helped make.
The wife expresses her feelings about the death of her child, although when the husband does make an attempt the wife stops him. This builds up an enormous amount of anger and frustration within the husband and this leads her to say “you make me angry... and it’s come to this a man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead”. She then says that he is unable to speak of his own child as he does not know how to do so. She doesn’t understand how he could just dig his own son’s grave and also thinks to herself that he had done this carelessly just to get the job done, without realising the emotions which he should be showing after the passing of his child. The wife said “making the gravel leap and leap in the air, like that, like that, and land so lightly and roll back down the mound beside the hole”. The wife perceives this as the husband’s lack of emotion which is seen to be the first cause of pulling his wife away from him and placing a barrier between them. She is clearly much more emotional than her husband, and though undoubtedly saddened by the death, he keeps it to himself and does not show any emotion towards his wife. When the husband then tried to talk with his wife she stops him from talking about her son and also attempts to leave the house. When leaving the house the husband tells her “stop taking your problems to other people” The death and lack of communication between the couple has placed a strong barrier between the couple as the woman does not feel a strong connection with her husband. The relationship is more than likely not going to survive as it seems by reading the poem the only reason why the couple were together was because of the child.
A barrier between people is something which separates them from one another and this is usually caused by conflict or lack of communication. Communication is a significant theme within Frosts poetry, as he makes it clear that communication is extremely hard to achieve.
The barrier between humans in the poem “Home Burial” shows the difficulties which people face when they struggle to show emotions or with a breakdown of communication. The speaker who is also the husband within the poem finds it extremely hard showing his emotions and also talking to his wife after the tragic passing of their child. This strong lack of communication is evident as this pushes the wife and husband apart. This lack of communication has resulted on having a detrimental effect with the couple’s marriage as the wife can no longer look at the husband as he has expressed no emotion at all about their departed child.
The neighbour in mending wall seems as if he wants very little to do with the speaker. This is shown in the poem as when the pair are repairing the wall, the neighbour or speaker never cross the wall onto the others territory so they always have a physical divide between each other at all times. The divide and lack of communication between both the speaker and also the neighbour could be seen as to have detrimental effects on the speaker as he try’s so hard to build a friendship with the neighbour who continually rejects this.
Humankind erects and maintains real and symbolic barriers to protect and defend opposing stances beliefs and territories. The resulting lack of communication reinforces those barriers, often to detrimental effects’
References:
Robert Frosts “Home Burial an explication by Mordecai Marcus
(Blurtit, (2009) What Are Emotional Barriers in Communication)
(Poetry Now; Leaving certificate English poetry higher level; 2003; Niall MacMonagle; page 89)
Bloom, Harold, ed. Robert Frost. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003.
Burnshaw, Stanley. Robert Frost Himself. New York: George Braziller, 1986.
Faggen, Robert. Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
Galbraith, Astrid. New England as Poetic Landscape: Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
