Importance Of Fences In Robert Frost's Mending Wall

“Sitting On The Fence Of Your Life”
(Do Fences Make Good Neighbors) The year is 2018, and imagine if everywhere you go everything would be fenced in around you. Where you go to school would be fenced in where you got to work, and even your own home. Imagine if for the rest of our lives we could be fenced in from everything around us. Imagine taking down a fence and wondering why it was there in the first place. In the short story “Mending Wall” written by Robert Frost the narrator tells a story about how every year two neighbors meet again to mend a wall back together that separates their property. The narrator does not understand what the need for the fence is, one has an apple tree, and the other has a pine tree. Neither of them have animals,
I have a fence in the back of my yard. One side is to keep my neighbor’s dog from fighting with my dogs. Also, the fence gives my family privacy from my noisy neighbor’s. If the fence were to be removed, my family and I would have a lot of problems with their dogs and ours. We would have problems with our privacy, as well as problems getting along. “Stay where you are until our backs are turned” (Frost pg 879). The quotes explains what good things do people do when others backs are turned? In today’s world people do awful things when everyone’s back is turned. Fences are used much more in today’s world then they were back then. From the article New York Times “People used to protect themselves with locks on their doors, today people are building fences” (Reich). The quote explains how much our world has changed, we not only have locks on our doors, but people today also have to build fences just to get their privacy because people these days can’t mind their own business. Both of these citations give a valid reason explaining what the importance of a fence does, and how it affects people’s lives
“Before I built a wall i’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out” (Frost pg 879). The narrator doesn’t know why he is rebuilding the wall because there is not point in having it there in the first place. Or was he re building it to keep his neighbor out? Having a fence highly affects the relationship people have with their neighbor. From the article Bartleyby “What role do fences play in shaping relationships between neighbors” (Bartleyby.com). This quotes explains that fences separate people from one another. That could be a good thing because then people get their privacy, and it keeps people from trespassing. It could also be a negative thing because if there is a constant barrier between two neighbors, then they will never get to know each other. Fences are very beneficial to have, they protect, and they insure that there will always be