Mending Wall Flashcards
Summary
Mending Wall’ (1914) by Robert Frost is a narrative poem about two
neighbours who meet annually to repair their shared wall. The poem uses
metaphors about nature to explore the importance of borders or boundaries
between people.
About Robert Frost
Born on March 26, 1874, in San
Francisco the poet began to take
interest in reading and writing poetry
while he was in high school in
Lawrence.
He is in fact an author of universal
themes; he used quite an
easy-to-understand language with
layers of irony and ambiguity
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,”
From lines 1 to 9, the narrator says that there is
something mysterious in nature that does not want
walls. That something always destroys the walls,
making a gap in the wall through which two people
can easily pass. The narrator says that sometimes the
wall is damaged by some careless hunters, who pull
down the stones of the walls in search of rabbits to
please their barking dogs
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly ball…” We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:”
line 9 to 22
From lines 9 to 22, the narrator says that though no one has ever heard the noise or seen anyone
making the gaps, they do exist when it is time to mend the walls during the spring season. They are
realities, and so the narrator asks his neighbor to go beyond the hill and find out after all who creates
these gaps. One day, when both of them (narrator and neighbor) determine to walk along the wall, they
are surprised to see stones scattered on the ground. They see that some stones are shaped like bread
loaves, while a few of them are round in shape. Due to their mysterious shape, the narrator and
neighbor find it quite difficult to put them in their previous position. Seeing the unusual shape of these
stones, the narrator thinks of using some kind of magic trick to place the stones back on the wall.
Though all through the process of tackling the stones their fingers become too rough and make them
exhausted, it is like an outdoor game for them, wherein the wall works as a net and both (the narrator
and his neighbor) are opponents.
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are 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,..”
“And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there line 22 to 36
From lines 22 to 36, the narrator makes every possible effort to make his neighbor
understand that we don’t need a wall. He asks why to have a wall, when he has
only pine trees and I have only apple. How can his apple trees trespass the wall
border and eat his neighbor’s pine cones. Moreover, there is no chance of offending
as they don’t also have any cows at their homes. While the narrator tries to make
his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall, as there is something that does
not love a wall, his neighbor is a stone-headed savage, who continues to believe in
his father’s age-old cliché that, “Good fences make good neighbors.
(LINE 37-45)
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
From lines 37 to 45 of ‘Mending Wall’: Though all through
the poem, the narrator wants to put his notion into his
neighbor’s mind, the kind of imagination he makes to
convince his neighbor about the existence of wall (s)
sometimes also makes me think twice about the poet. For
example, let’s take these lines wherein the narrator tells
his friend (neighbor) that there is something like
non-human entity as elves that come and break the walls.
We all know that elves are those supernatural beings that
are tiny in size and can only be seen in the mythological
stories and folklore. But immediately when the narrator
changes his opinion and feels that it is not the work of
elves rather some kind of power in nature, I feel relieved
as the narrator is finally talking sense. He says it is the
work of nature that works against any type of walls and
barrier
LAST LINE)
However, the narrator gets immensely irritated to see his neighbor firmly holding a
stone and giving a look of an ancient stone-age man, who is getting armed to fight.
The narrator feels that his neighbor is too ignorant to convince. He always wants to
be stuck and follow his father’s words that good fences make good neighbors
Structure of the Poem
The poem mending wall does not follow a proper poetic form. It is a single stanza poem of forty-six lines and is written in blank verse. None of the lines rhyme with each other.
• Blank Verse:
It is a form of poetry where the lines do not rhyme, and it uses iambic pentameter.
• Iambic Pentameter:
A metric scheme with five pairs of syllables per line. Each pair comprises an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
The author likes to
Use easy to understand laungauge with layers of ambiguity and irony
The author likes to
Use easy to understand laungauge with layers of ambiguity and irony
The author likes to
Use easy to understand laungauge with layers of ambiguity and irony
line 1 to 3
blank verse with no rhyme, it is a rough iambic pentameter, 10 syllables per line
what mood is set
mysterious mood in line 1 as there is something that doesn’t love a wall
line 4 ,how does he describe the gap
allows the reader to realise how large the gap is as two can pas abreast
3 parties involved other than the neighbor and narrator
hunters,rabbits and yelping dogs
wherre is emnjambent
line 6 to 7
