Mending Wall

In Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” we see a commentary on social constructs of shutting ourselves off from those around us. The physical action of the poem involves the author and his neighbor working to repair the wall that separates their properties.

In the beginning, the first 11 lines or so, we are given the reasons that the wall needs repair. He begins with “Something” that doesn’t “love a wall.” The “frozen-ground-swell” and the spilling of the boulders are ways that nature tears down this wall, sometimes creating gaping holes. Another reason the wall is falling apart is the hunter searching for his prey, in this case a rabbit. By using both nature and a “natural” process such as predator/prey as reasons for the wall falling apart, the reader gets a sense that the wall is, by its existence, going against what is natural. As we look at the analytical shift of the poem, we see the wall can actually represent his relationship with his neighbor, not just the physical wall they are building together.

This analytical shift takes place at the line “He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’” From this point on, Frost begins questioning the reasons behind this wall: “Why do they make good neighbors?” The transition line actually begins a section of inclusio, which lasts until the end of the poem, when the line is repeated again. But there is another section of inclusio that extends from the first line of the poem to a few lines after the analytical transition with the line “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

The two sections of inclusio overlap, keeping the poem from having a definite breaking line between a first and second part. This overlap is one way that Frost shapes the poem like a wall, with the other coming in the structure of the lines. The entire 45 lines of the poem is one stanza. So, just like the unbroken syntax (with overlapping inclusios), the unbroken lines also present a picture of an unbroken wall that the neighbor wishes to keep up when he ends the poem with “Good fences make good neighbors.”