With the poem featuring first-person narration, Mending Wall by Robert Frost at first seems to be a short story fit into the structure of the poem. A closer look, however, reveals that the poem is not just a story, but it highlights the concept of the wall as a demarcation line between people and their property. What is more, Kemp (1979) argued that “its basic appeal is unmistakable and results from the skillfully represented relationship of a speaker, or persona, and his neighbor, the farmer “from beyond the hill” (p. 13). Thus, the poem is exceptional in regard to the theme of human secrecy and mutual mistrust that affects people’s lives and draws them apart in their understanding of the world.
First and foremost, Mending Wall is a free verse poem, which makes it a bit difficult to perceive and comprehend it yet doesn’t lessen its literary value. Interestingly, as the structure of the poem is characterized by lack of clear transitions between lines, making them sound abrupt and snippy, the poem itself encourages the reader to come up with his/her own rhythm of reading. Once being read for a couple of times, however, Mending Wall gains its poetic sound and reveals its literary aesthetic value, which is ensured by its thematic decoration.
The theme of the poem appears to be the core of its poetic significance. Focusing on the idea of isolation by means of a wall, the theme of Mending Wall, to be more precise, has actually to do with human desire for power within certain limits. In this case, the desire for power is embodied in owning property and establishing its bounds, which Frost (2015) put “And set the wall between us once again” (line 14). Furthermore, the theme of desire for power is supported by two more themes, i.e. sticking to old customs and traditions (Frost (2015) described it “like an old-stone savage armed”) (line 40) and the ground of misunderstanding, which emerges as the two neighbors regard the wall in two different ways (Frost (2015) stated the perspectives of both men, i.e. “There where it is we do not need the wall” (line 23), “Good fences make good neighbors” (line 27)).
Last but not least, the language of the poem is basically simple, standing in contrast to the complexity of the thematic canvas. Nevertheless, figures of speech like synecdoche (Frost (2015) described it in terms of the garden, i.e. “He is all pine and I am apple orchard”) (line 24), metaphor (Frost (2015) created poetic exaggeration in several lines, like “What I was walling in or walling out” (line 33), “He will not go behind his father’s saying” (line 43), “If I could put a notion in his head” (line 29)), epithet (Frost (2015) used it to describe his neighbor as “an old-stone savage”) (line 40) can be found in the poem, adding expressiveness to its language and expressing the theme more vividly.
References
Frost, R. (2015). Mending Wall. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173530.
Kemp, G. C. (1979). Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist. Guildford: Princeton University Press.
