"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost.
Robert Frost's poetry is always simple and direct, yet strangely deep. Everyone can read into his poem but with different kind of expression. Frost has been discovering the world. He likes to explore relationships between individuals and between people and nature. One of his famous poems, 'Mending Wall', reveals his feelings and ideas about community, life and imagination.
In New Hampshire, where Frost's house was, there was a stonewall. This stonewall was the inspiration for the poem "Mending Wall". It was here that Frost used to repair this wall with his neighbor Napoleon Guay, who always says: "Good fences make good neighbors." In his poem 'Mending Wall', the persona and the neighbor are mending a wall that separates their properties. The most interesting statement in this poem: "Good fences make good neighbors" (line 25) is a paradox, which attracts our attention and lead us to further discussion on Frost's intention to write this poem. Every winter, the wall fell down and every spring, the persona and the neighbor met together to mend it. It has somehow become an entertainment for them, as stated in line 21, "Oh, just another kind of outdoor game". Later, the persona found that there were no reasons to mend the wall at all, and this arises to the central theme of the poem. The persona kept on questioning the reasons for mending since they do not keep any animals. In the poem, it says:
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.(Line 31-34)
If a wall needs repair every year, it is not a good fence. Yet, it does make good neighbors because it brings the men together every spring. Maybe the neighbor's father had this very same intention too. The two characters meet and know more about each other when they work on the wall together. This explanation is quite ironic because the wall is meant to
In New Hampshire, where Frost's house was, there was a stonewall. This stonewall was the inspiration for the poem "Mending Wall". It was here that Frost used to repair this wall with his neighbor Napoleon Guay, who always says: "Good fences make good neighbors." In his poem 'Mending Wall', the persona and the neighbor are mending a wall that separates their properties. The most interesting statement in this poem: "Good fences make good neighbors" (line 25) is a paradox, which attracts our attention and lead us to further discussion on Frost's intention to write this poem. Every winter, the wall fell down and every spring, the persona and the neighbor met together to mend it. It has somehow become an entertainment for them, as stated in line 21, "Oh, just another kind of outdoor game". Later, the persona found that there were no reasons to mend the wall at all, and this arises to the central theme of the poem. The persona kept on questioning the reasons for mending since they do not keep any animals. In the poem, it says:
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.(Line 31-34)
If a wall needs repair every year, it is not a good fence. Yet, it does make good neighbors because it brings the men together every spring. Maybe the neighbor's father had this very same intention too. The two characters meet and know more about each other when they work on the wall together. This explanation is quite ironic because the wall is meant to