Daniel Im

IB Lang 12

Moosman 4

Mending Wall Analysis

Summary: It starts off by talking about how there are some forces that don't like the wall

causing holes and parts to fall. Some of these factors are nature and hunters. Because of that, the

speaker fixes the wall often. The Speaker then talks about his neighbor, who lives over a hill, and

how they get together on a day to walk along the line of the wall and fix its holes. The rocks are

all in awkwards shapes to make them fit snugly with each other and because of that, they hope

they won’t fall out. This hard work wears out their fingers. Speaker then talks about how there

really isn’t a need for the wall. His neighbor’s side of the wall contains pines while the Speaker’s

side contains apple orchards. The neighbor responds to this with ,” Good fences make good

neighbours.”(Frost) The Speaker believes that there should be a reasonable answer for this wall,

continuing to ask questions about the wall but the neighbor just keeps going, fixing the wall. The

poem then ends with the neighbor saying that “Good fences make good neighbors” once again.

Analysis: The poem by Robert Frost The poem itself is about walls, borders, barriers, etc.

and how they take work to maintain as well as change the ways humans interact with things. One

of the more important claims in the poem is how this wall is unnecessary, both metaphorically

and literally. This boundary walling off the possible relationship is actually pointless while the

neighbor, who keeps claiming that the wall is needed, is trying to say that this separation is

necessary. This idea has always been a part of them and thus should be continued because it

seemed to work so far. Furthermore, when the speaker asks why the wall is needed, the neighbor

replies that a good fence makes a good neighbor, meaning that a good person would establish
boundaries, which prevents problems and conflicts between people. The neighbor is kind of

paranoid about the possible problems. This conflict between the two is a representation of a

debate of what is necessary for human society. They argru if it is better to have a set boundary

between people seeing if it is even necessary for a boundary to prevent these conflicts. Overall,

this poem is pretty ambiguous not giving a definitive side for the author, Robert Frost but rather

asking a question.