The poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost presents his ideas of barriers

between people, communication, friendship and the sense of safety

that people acquire from building barriers.

Summary of Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Lines 1-9: The narrator expresses his wonder about a phenomenon,

through these lines, that he has observed in nature. He says that he
has observed something mysterious takes place in nature which does
not love the existence of walls. That something makes the frozen
ground to bloat under the wall and topple the stone wall on the
boundary of his property. Hence, a gap is created in the wall through
which two people can pass together. Robert Frost says that sometimes
even careless hunters damage the walls but he drives them away and
repairs the gap. The hunters pull down the stones of the walls. This
way they search for rabbits hiding under the wall to please their
barking dogs.

Lines 9-22: The poet rehearses the mystery of the wall. He says that no
one has seen or heard the noise when the gaps in the walls are made.
But these gaps are realities which are found during the spring when it
is time for mending walls. The narrator makes his neighbour go beyond
the hill to see the conditions there. One day, the narrator along with his
neighbour decides to walk along the wall which separates their
properties. They find stones fallen on the ground while they are
walking. They pick up those stones from their respective sides. Some
stones are shaped in bread loaves or some are shaped in round balls.
Hence, the narrator and his neighbour are unable to put those stones
back in their position. The narrator feels they need to use some kind of
magic to put the stones back on the wall. During the process of
handling the stones, their fingers are chapped and they feel tired. But
the narrator and the neighbour look at it as an outdoor game, a kind of
net game, where the wall acts like a net and the narrator and his
neighbour are opponents.

Lines 22-36: The narrator tries to convince his neighbour that the wall
is of no need because the narrator has an apple orchard while the
neighbour own pine trees. He says that the apples that grow in his
orchard would not trespass and eat the cones of his pine trees. To this,
the neighbour replies, Good fences make good neighbours. The
narrator is not sure whether he can put an idea into the neighbours
mind- the idea why good fences are required to keep cows at bay. If
there are no cows, fences are not needed either. The narrator tells that
if he has to ever build a wall, he will ask himself whom he will be
protecting by constructing a wall and whether the wall will offend
anyone. He believes that there is something that does not love walls
and wants it to be pulled down.

Lines 37-46:
The narrator tells his friend that he believes some non-human entity like elves
break the walls. The elves are tiny, supernatural beings from folklore and
myth. But then the narrator changes his opinion and feels that it may not be
the work of the elves but the power in nature which works against building of
walls and barriers. The narrator sees his neighbour holding firmly a stone
looking like an ancient stone-age man, armed to fight. The narrator feels that
his neighbour is living in the darkness of ignorance. His neigbour does not
want to go against his fathers words that good fences make good neighbours.
Thinking for a while, his neighbour reiterates that Good fences make good
neighbours.

Trisha October 27, 2013 ISC Poems, Robert Frost

Analysis of Mending Wall by Robert Frost

The theme of the poem is about two neighbours who disagree over the
need of a wall to separate their properties. Not only does the wall act
as a divider in separating the properties, but also acts as a barrier to
friendship, communication. From the narrators view, barriers lead to
alienation and emotional isolation and loneliness. The narrator cannot
help but notice that the natural world seems to dislike the existence of
a wall as much as he does and therefore, mysterious gaps appear from
nowhere and boulders fall for no reason. The poem portrays the lack of
friendship between two neighbours, they now each other but they are
not friends. There exists a communication gap between them; they
meet each other only on appointed days to fix the wall separating their
properties.
Thus, the poem is a sad reflection on todays society, where man-made
barriers exist between men, groups, nations based on discrimination of
race, caste, creed, gender and religion.

Form and Structure in Mending Wall:

Mending Wall is a poem of 46 lines without a neat stanza structure. It
is a dramatic narrative poem composed in blank verse and also
comprises of balanced strict Iambic pentameter lines.
The language of the poem is conversational in tone.
Poetical Devices:
Robert Frost has used a number of poetical devices to enhance the
perception and feelings that he wants to communicate to the readers
through an inanimate object, a wall.
Metaphor: Examples of metaphors in the poem are listed below;
1. The wall in the poem is a metaphor for two kinds of barriers-
physical and mental.
*Something there is that doesnt love a wall
*And set the wall between us once again
*We keep the wall between as we go.

2. In another metaphor, stone blocks have been compared to loaves

and balls.
*And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance.

Simile used in Mending Wall:

Example of simile from the poem,-
I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed..
In the above lines, Frost describes his neighbour who was holding a
stone firmly in his hand and looked like some primitive man armed to
fight.

Personification in Mending Wall:

Something there is that doesnt love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
In the above lines, an unseen force in nature has been personified. It is
this force that breaks down the boundaries that man has created.
Parallelism:
It is a figure of speech that has a similar word order and structure in
their syntax.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
Here, to each is parallelism as it emphasizes that fact that the
narrator and his neighbour are on the opposite sides of the wall.
Pun:
An example of Pun in the poem is And to whom I was like to offence.
Here, the word offence is a pun as it sounds like fence.

Paradox:
Frosts poems are famous for juxtaposing the opposites for life. The
poem has two famous lines which oppose each other.
Something there is that doesnt love a wall
Good fences make good neighbours.

Allusion:
Mending Wall has an allusion to elves, the tiny supernatural
creatures drawn from folklore and myth.

Alliteration:
The examples of alliteration in the poem are the following:
*We wear our fingers with handling them
*Before I built a wall
*What I was walling in or walling out.

Symbolism in Mending Wall:

Frosts poems are known for his distinctive use of symbols. These
symbols enhance the significance and deeper meaning of the poem.
*The fence symbolizes national, racial, religious, political and economic
conflicts and discrimination which separate man from man and hinders
the ways of understanding and cultivating relationships.
*The dispute between the two neighbours symbolizes the clash
between tradition and modernity. The young generation wants to
demolish the old tradition and replace it with modernity while the old
wants to cling on to the existing tradition and beliefs.
In Mending Wall, Frost has taken an ordinary incident of constructing
or mending a wall between the his and his neighbours garden and has
turned it into a meditation on the division between human beings.
Trisha November 21, 2013 ISC Poems, Poets with initials A to E

1
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Night was written by Dylan Thomas in
1945, when his father D. J Thomas was seriously ill. The poem was
published in his collection, In Country Sleep, after his fathers death.
The poem is a protest against the idea of accepting death quietly. It
discusses the various ways to approach death in old age and
advocates struggling against death until the last breath.

Summary of Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night by Dylan Thomas:

Stanza 1: The first stanza begins the poet requesting his father not to
be soft on death. He asks his father not to accept death quietly but to
fight against it with great force and passion. The word good night in
the first line refer to a good death and the poet encourages his father
to resist death in a gentle way. The use of the word rage in line shows
the poet exhorting his father to imply a forceful resistance to death.

Stanza 2: The second stanza describes the attitude and feelings of wise
men who realize that death is approaching. These wise men can be
identified with philosophers and scholars. As these wise men know that
death is inevitable, they do not accept death passively. Scholars are
known and measured by their words. They are not concerned if their
words fail to affect people. They know they still have a long way to go,
their many words are still left unspoken or unwritten and their goals
have not been yet accomplished. Therefore, they hold on to life till the
very end to achieve their goals.

Stanza 3: In the third stanza, the poet describes how the good men
face death. Good here refers to moralists or men who live an upright
life. Dylan Thomas believes that true goodness is composed of fighting
the inevitability of death with all your might and force. Last wave can
be interpreted this way. The recent generation of men is termed as the
last wave. These generations of men are about to die in the similar
manner like the ocean waves crashing against each other. Crying has
two meanings. It can either simply mean speaking out or it can mean
in the literal sense, weeping or mourning. The bay is green as it is
brimming with life, plants, seaweeds and algae.
Stanza 4: In the fourth stanza, the poet describes the reactions of wild
men towards death. These men are too much in action their whole life
and they forget to realize that they are mortal. They waste their lives in
adventures and excitements. They do not give in because they hold on
these adventures to perhaps correct some of their mistakes. The wild
men can be a reference to the poets who captures the beauty of
nature and sings the sun in flight. These men feel they cannot be
happy when their total output was an elegy.

Stanza 5: The fifth stanza is about the attitude of grave men. The word
grave here has two meaning, seriousness and death. These men
realize that even though they are weak and losing their sight, they can
still use their strength to fight against death. Metaphorically speaking,
though their eyes are going blind, they can see with an overwhelming
certainty or blinding sight. The blinding sight here signifies Dylans
father who had lost his sight. They believed that instead of getting
snuffed like candles, they can blaze like meteors. Therefore, these
men know they are going to die and so they see the world with a
twinkle in their eyes, wanting to see as much as they can before
leaving the world.

Stanza 6: The final stanza is about the poet addressing his father. The
sad height refers to his closeness to death. The poet asks his father to
bless him or curse but to cry with a lot of passion that is to fight
fiercely against death. He pleads him not to give in to death but to
fight against with all your might.

Analysis of Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night by Dylan Thomas

Form and Structure:
Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night is structured in a Villanelle. A
villanelle is a fixed form of fixed verse form of French origin. The word
has been derived from the Italian word, villan meaning peasant. So it is
considered to have come from the sixteenth-century peasant songs.
The form of the villanelle indicates that it descended from a choral
dance song; it has a refrain and self-improvised lyrics in each stanza.

Sound and Sense:

Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night has iambic pentameter as the kind of
meter. The vocabulary contains seven times as many monosyllables as
polysyllables
Symbolism:
The poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night has the following
symbolisms-
* Night in the poem symbolizes death
* Burn and rave are frequently associated with the passion of youth;
here the poet wants the elderly to sing passionately.
* Close of day symbolizes approaching death
* blaze like meteors symbolize living life with full intensity.
* Sad height symbolizes closeness to death
* Gentle is used as an adjective and it refers to the personality of the
poets father.
Poetical Devices:
Alliteration:
The examples of alliteration are as follows-
*Do not go gentle into that good night
*Rage, rage against the dying of the light
*..blinding sight/ Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay

Simile:
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay is an example of fine
simile in the poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night

Oxymoron:
An oxymoron is a paradox in which two terms of ordinary usage are
contraries and conjoined.
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray is an example of
oxymoron in the poem. The poet is asking his father to bless as well
as curse him.
Parallelism:
The poem has the use of parallelism by describing the actions of three
different kind of men, wise men, good men, wild men and grave
men. The speaker wants his father to have the qualities of these men.
Contrasts:
The poet has used a number of contrasts in Do Not Go Gentle Into The
Night to highlight its theme. They are as follows-
*gentle and rage
*night and day
*light and dark
*blind and sight
*grave and grey
*curse and bless
This is a poem about the joy and sadness that comes with the flash of burning life soon
blown out with nothing more then a sigh. It focuses on the sadness as those we care for
go far too gently into that good night. Of those who left before their time. As this poem
was written specifically for Thomass dying father it is even more poignant in the
emotional weight the words convey. This poem radiates with intensity, in particular, the
verse beginning: wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight" is simply beautiful
poetry.

Addressed to the poets father as he approaches blindness and death. The relevant
aspect of the relationship was Thomass profound respect for his father, tall and

strong in Thomass passionate mind but now tamed by illness and the passing of time.
The acceptance of death and a peaceful rest afterwards are pushed aside in favor of an
ungentle rage so blind it almost mirrors the vigor of childhood frustration at the nature of
things we are powerless to change. Further more, the poem speaks as much of the loss
of love and the feelings of one left behind as of death itself. The meaning of the poem
stays shrouded in metaphors like the references to night as good. He acknowledged
his father stood somewhere he had not, and perhaps saw what he could not.
Thomas was not ready to let go of such an important part of his life even though his
father was facing an irreversible course, and Thomass grief was perhaps all the greater.
His statement of this love and grief remain touching. Perhaps the feelings of his fading
father should have been more important than his own rage. These emotions seem to
run unchallenged throughout the poem even though the style beckons structure and
discipline within the theme of night and light. In the tercets Thomas gives examples
of men who meet death differently yet alike. The first are wise men, perhaps
philosophers. They know dark is right because they know what to look for at the end of
life. In spite of their wisdom, however, they do not go gentle because their words had
forked no lightning. This phrase has the force of a symbol suggesting that wise men
had lacked the ultimate power of nature.
Thomas therefore seems to be saying that the wise men were not wise enough, that their words
created no ultimate linguistic reality but vague speculation of death as a good thing.
Subsequently, the good men of the third tercet permitted life to pass them by. The festive
imagery of bright /Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, evokes a wonder world
of joyful activities in contrast with the frail deeds. Why, we wonder, do the good men regret
the past just as the last wave goes by? As for the style it is most definitely an elevated style of
poetic diction within a villanelle format. The term originated in Italy (Italian villanella from
villano: peasant); and later used in France to designate a short poem of popular character
favored by poets in the late 16th century. Five tercets are followed by a quatrain, with the first
and last line of the stanza repeated alternately as the last line of the subsequent stanzas and
gathered into a couplet at the end of the quatrain. The stanza is repeated for dramatic effect and
tone : Rage, rage against the dying of the light". In this case this particular stanza, gaining
much of its impact from repetition and variation, paints a clear a definite picture of the authors
strong emotions.
And all this on only two rhymes. Thomas further compounds his difficulty by having each
line contain about the same amount of syllables. The villanelle seems like a very
regimented and difficult form; the effortless ease with which Thomas makes it appear
adds clarity to the complex emotions describes in the poem. The rhetoric is never
jumbled or ruff, and always profoundly moving; the images are far reaching, yet terribly
true; the complicated rhyme scheme simply adds to the many dimensions of the poem.
In conclusion, the events surrounding Thomas at the time do not make up all the
character of this poem.

As it is often the case, this work stands on its own. It either speak to one, or not. But no
matter what personal reasons inspired Thomas, the poem speaks to our need to make
our lives count against our inevitable deaths. Though the theme is paradoxical, it
declares to all: Live your life while you are actually dying. Do not accept death passively.
Live intensely and resist death passionately. All the beautifully contrasting metaphors
where Thomass way of gracefully asking his father not to leave him alone, in the dark.