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Jun 2007, Volume 4, No.6 (Serial No.

42) Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN1539-8072, USA

Interpretation of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

ZHAO Xin-li
(School of Foreign Languages, Langfang Teachers College, Langfang 065000, China)

Abstract: Robert Frost is skillful at adopting symbolism and images in his poems. “Mending Wall”, one of
Frost’s well-known poems, had been analyzed in different approaches, such as psychoanalytical approach, social
approach and structural approaches, etc. By exploring the symbol and images applied in “Mending Wall”, it draws
the conclusion that “the wall”, symbolizing convention, is set as a barrier in human communication.
Key words: symbol; image; “Mending Wall”; convention

1. Introduction

Robert Frost is adept at applying symbolism and images in his poetry. One aspect of Frost’s theory is “his
understanding of symbolism and how it functions in a poem” (Parini, 1993, p. 265). He classified himself as a
poet who was a synecdochist and stated that he preferred synecdoche in poetry—that figure of speech we use a
part for the whole. In his poetry, one image after another is unfolded gradually. It is rather easy for readers to catch
the surface meaning of his poetry. However, the ulterior meaning, which is the value of his poetry, worths our life
time of contemplation.
In “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost depicts a commonplace occurrence that a wall separating a farmer’s land
from that of his neighbor’s has crumbled down and awaits repairs. Such is a scene typical in Robert Frost’s poems,
which always take on an easy-understood appearance and is imbued with profound significance. “It would be a
mistake to imagine that Frost is easy to understand because he is easy to read” (Elliott, 1988, p. 944). You “begin
in delight, end in wisdom.” As we may mend a stone wall, pick up apples, watch a spider, and mow the lawn in his
poems, we also acquire enlightenment and inspiration towards life. As it explores in “Mending Wall” that the
wall—the symbol of convention—sometimes is set as a barrier in human communication.

2. The Wall as the Symbol of Convention

The poem starts with the crumbling down of the wall.


Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spill the upper boulder in the sun,
That makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

As soon as “I” find the toppling wall, “I let the neighbor know beyond the hill” and prepare to mend the wall.
To the speaker, erecting a wall is a conventional concept, deeply ingrained in the mind. It is out of instinct that the
speaker acknowledges the neighbor to repair the wall together. The wall standing between the lands of two

ZHAO Xin-li (1980- ), female, B.A., teaching assistant of School of Foreign Languages, Langfang Teachers College; research
field: British and American literature.

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Interpretation of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

families has become a tradition, inherited from ancestors. “The spring mending time” each year is a regular
activity of farmers in New England, revealing the powerful predominance of tradition on people’s mind. Without
meditating on its rationality of existence, people observe it as a strict rule.
The neighbor’s repetition of “Good fences make good neighbors” manifests that he is a convention upholder.
Residing in the convention-dominated world, he regards the proverb as an unquestionable universal truth. When “I
try to put a notion in his head,” his mere utterance is the proverb. His response is short, full of coldness and
obstinacy. He asserts it with such a blind determination towards the existence of the wall in between that an
invisible wall has been installed between them. Without pondering on whether or not there is the necessity to build
a wall, he sticks to dogged rules of convention and refuses to any kind of change. To some degree, he is the
representative of convention.
The neighbor’s mind is also exemplified in his behavior.
I see him there
Bring a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

The shift in voice, a slowing down and steadying of rhythm, the contemplativeness previously absent, does
not simply mime the slow actions of the neighbor. The neighbor likened to the old-stone savage, is considered
backward and uncivilized. The image is also a hint of convention, which has been lasting ever since the primitive
age and has an irresistible dominance on people. Furthermore, a seemingly apparent evolvement of human beings
turns out to be the lack of communication. With the economic development, however, people alienate one from
another by installing walls in between. “Frost himself realized that such neighbors on nearby farms were
increasing in number” (Averev, 1976, p. 255). Only under the harbor of those physically existing walls can they
develop a sense of security and safety. They, represented by the neighbor in the poem, hold a suspicious opinion
towards others and refuse to conduct genuine communication with each other. As time goes by, they are confined
to their own world. There is nothing left in their psychological world except the tremendous power of convention.
Another influence of convention on people is the “darkness” shrouding the neighbor as is depicted in the
poem. “He moved in darkness as it seems to me, / not of woods only and the shade of trees.” It reflects a revision
in the speaker as he imagines the neighbor and acknowledges how far from him—how other from him—the
neighbor is, a distance which is metaphorical and rendered here and temporally through “like an old savage.” The
neighbor, dwelling in the shade of convention, separates others from him by enclosing himself in his “solid
fortress.” The speaker, who realizes the darkness surrounding the neighbor and others, is also aware that the
distance is not transgressible and nor is genuine reciprocity possible. “As he confronts that darkness and distance,
he can consider what barriers, if any, he would want down, what barriers he simply cannot cross, and what such an
act might take.”
The response towards the crumbling wall and the process of “Mending Wall” implies that convention has
exerted a tremendous dominance on people’s mind and behavior.
There arises a conflict between the neighbor and the speaker on whether there is a need to mend the wall. The
speaker insists that there is no need to build a wall, because
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across,
And eat the cones under his pines.

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Interpretation of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

Influenced by the conventional ideas as well, it dawns on the speaker that there is no necessity to keep a wall
in between at this time. And there is no such livestock in the speaker’s land as “cows” that the neighbor’s land will
not suffer from any possible destruction. The speaker, in a teasing and childlike way, puts forward his doubt about
traditional concept that a wall should be there in between. He is unconscious that he is taking side with
unconventional ideas. The neighbor, however, is convinced that the wall should be mended by citing the old
saying. Set ideas and habits, forged by convention, have influenced him so much that his mind is restricted and
becomes a mere spokesman of convention. Lacking enthusiasm for the speaker, the neighbor refuses to talk with
the speaker on that issue. In his mind, the proverb is the authoritarian truth. The conflict is about what is
conventional and what is unconventional. Standing in between the speaker and his neighbor is a solid wall of
convention, which serves as an invisible wall, barring the communication among people.
Not only does the neighbor hold firmly the idea that a wall should be installed, but also the speaker takes an
ambivalent attitude toward the wall. On the one hand, the speaker doubts the necessity of a wall and tries to
persuade the neighbor from keeping a wall there. On the other hand, the speaker and his neighbor wear their
fingers rough to mend the wall and the speaker enjoys the activity by regarding it as “another kind of outdoor
game.” He is not determined with his own conviction and sways from side to side. Confronted with awful power
of convention, he is a little confused and hesitant. His thought flashes in the darkness of convention, but very soon
it is devoured by the endless latter and disappears.
The speaker’s meditation on the wall—“Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what’s I was walling in or
what’s out”—indicates the real essence of a wall. People shut themselves in their own world and shut others out
under the disguise of convention. A wall may protect one’s dignity and property, but hinders communication at the
same time. After the wall has been built and the concept has been set up in people’s mind, an invisible wall erects
there separating one from another. “The desire to fence oneself off from others, to shut oneself off in one’s own
little world, is a notion quite alien to the people” (Averev, 1976, p. 255).
When the speaker’s sobriety of the issue is ignored by the neighbor, he winces and retreats to his own world.
The poem ends with the proverb “Good fences make good neighbors,” showing the predominance of the speaker’s
voice and that of the convention. With everyone enclosed in their own world, the speaker is with no exception.
The issue whether or not to mend the wall is left there unsolved. The real purpose of the poem is not to provide a
solution to the human problem. The great significance of Frost’s poem lies in its awareness and exposition of
human problem. The answer is left for readers to contemplate our daily life.

3. Other Images

Nevertheless, Frost employs several images in “Mending Wall” to reveal his tendency toward the problem of
“Mending Wall”. He adopts the images of “something”, “Elves” and “spring” to convey his attitude. “Frost
discovers a completely different aspect in the motif-something there is that does not love a wall.” The poem
begins with the line—“something there is that doesn’t love a wall”, foregrounding the prominence of the
“something”. Later, he emphasizes this image by repeating the same line. Without pointing out what kind of thing
this “something” is, Frost leaves a spacious room for the readers to exert the imagination to the utmost. It is
something unknown to us, something mysterious to all of us. Maybe it is “Elves”, which dislikes the wall
separating human beings from one another and crumbles down the wall mischievously. The third image is
“spring”. As we all know, spring is the time of rebirth and the symbol of a new beginning. The farmers in New

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Interpretation of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

England in the very season, nonetheless, mend the walls in between to protect their property. With the wall being
strengthened, the relationship is not mended but distanced farther instead. Poetry once was defined as “the best
words in the best order.” It is not a mere coincidence that Frost selects “spring” in the poem. He is fully conscious
of the denotation of “spring” and adopts it to highlight the theme that it is high time to eliminate all the barriers.
Spring is the time for people to break through the confinement of archaic convention and develop new ideas.
Knowing it is a formidable task to persuade people to break down the wall and conduct genuine communication,
Frost tends to arouse people’s awareness of their isolation from one another. Above all, the poem implies that not
only human beings, represented by the speaker, but also natural and supernatural power (“something”, “Elves”,
“spring”) show strong wishes and desire of tearing down the wall, visible and invisible among people.

4. Conclusion

“Frost was temperamentally a poet of meditative sobriety. The truth he sought were innate in heart of
humanity and in common objects” (Perkins, 2002, p. 847). In “Mending Wall,” Frost depicts the annual activity of
“Mending Wall”. By adopting the symbol of wall, Frost indicates something suggestive and something more than
the surface meaning of a stone wall. The wall, symbolizing convention—the habitual way of people’s mind and
behavior, hinders communication among people. By presenting a conflict over the wall, Frost may imply that an
invisible wall is standing in the way of people’s genuine reciprocity. Instead of mending the wall, people are
supposed to transcend their conventional restraints and tear down the wall in between.

References:
Elliott, Emory. 1988. Columbia literary history of the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.
Perkins, George and Perkins, Barbara. 2002. The American tradition in literature. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2.
Parini, Jay & Millier, Brett C. 1993. The Columbia history of American poetry. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zverev, A. 1976. A lover’s quarrel with the world: Robert Frost, In: Ronald Vroon, trans, 20th century American literature: A Soviet
view. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

(Edited by Hanna and Stella)

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