The human race is infamous for putting up barriers. Society began to master the art of shutting people out centuries ago, both physically and mentally. Yet no person truly enjoys being on his or her own. This conflicting idea/image at the core of Robert Frost’s 1914 poem, “Mending Wall,” is striking: two neighbors come together to build a barrier between them yet also display a sense of respect and neighborliness towards one another. They make this wall out of custom, out of habit. This pattern of barrier-building appears as a frequent theme in both literature and politics, from the feuding families in the play “Romeo and Juliet” to President Trump’s incessant push to erect a physical wall between the United States and Mexico. Frost fuses the
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Annaliese Connolly, a renowned scholar who specializes in Renaissance drama, accurately summarizes the central problem in the play. Connolly explains that “two young protagonists” are the “victims of fate whose lives are marred from the outset by the feud between their families.” This “feud” Connolly describes becomes the biggest hindrance between Romeo and Juliet and ultimately leads them to their death. What a tragedy: two lovers from disagreeing families, condemned to be apart only to find themselves falling in love. The quarrel between the two families emulates a close similarity to the neighbors’ wall. The old family disagreement divides the two lovers and it appears as though they can never be together. But, like the neighbors putting the wall back together, Romeo and Juliet persist. Time and time again, the wall is the obstacle standing in the way of two people becoming closer, whether in friendship or in love. The death of the two lovers is a bit more extreme than the ending of “Mending Wall.” Where Romeo and Juliet’s ending is a literal and physical demise, the two neighbors experience another type of death mentally. They are wilting away inside because this tradition that they do not understand, or care to know why it continues, divides them from becoming better neighbors and even friends. These men are …show more content…
Humans are territorial. People like drawing a line in the dirt, pointing at it, then fanning the area with his or her arms while saying “this is all mine and mine alone.” What is the cause for why society conducts itself like this? As the repeating cycle portrayed in “Mending Wall,” people make physical barriers and that, later in time, come to their social life as well. Frost’s original use of allegory in his work highlights this valuable lesson and gives the reader an extra symbol to go from. The irony is that no one truly wants to be alone but the darker, more primitive sides of the self becomes an ongoing internal conflict that bounds one to isolation. Our recently inaugurated president makes it no secret that one of his top priorities has become building a wall, which can only further divide relations between America and Mexico. Not even the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet could surpass this unforgiving wall of segregation, which deprives many of the true happiness that lies on the other side of this wall. The two families refused to let the barrier down for anyone on either side, resulting in two deaths. This conflict is one that permeates throughout humankind, a species that indisputably requires the boundaries they both desire and
Annaliese Connolly, a renowned scholar who specializes in Renaissance drama, accurately summarizes the central problem in the play. Connolly explains that “two young protagonists” are the “victims of fate whose lives are marred from the outset by the feud between their families.” This “feud” Connolly describes becomes the biggest hindrance between Romeo and Juliet and ultimately leads them to their death. What a tragedy: two lovers from disagreeing families, condemned to be apart only to find themselves falling in love. The quarrel between the two families emulates a close similarity to the neighbors’ wall. The old family disagreement divides the two lovers and it appears as though they can never be together. But, like the neighbors putting the wall back together, Romeo and Juliet persist. Time and time again, the wall is the obstacle standing in the way of two people becoming closer, whether in friendship or in love. The death of the two lovers is a bit more extreme than the ending of “Mending Wall.” Where Romeo and Juliet’s ending is a literal and physical demise, the two neighbors experience another type of death mentally. They are wilting away inside because this tradition that they do not understand, or care to know why it continues, divides them from becoming better neighbors and even friends. These men are …show more content…
Humans are territorial. People like drawing a line in the dirt, pointing at it, then fanning the area with his or her arms while saying “this is all mine and mine alone.” What is the cause for why society conducts itself like this? As the repeating cycle portrayed in “Mending Wall,” people make physical barriers and that, later in time, come to their social life as well. Frost’s original use of allegory in his work highlights this valuable lesson and gives the reader an extra symbol to go from. The irony is that no one truly wants to be alone but the darker, more primitive sides of the self becomes an ongoing internal conflict that bounds one to isolation. Our recently inaugurated president makes it no secret that one of his top priorities has become building a wall, which can only further divide relations between America and Mexico. Not even the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet could surpass this unforgiving wall of segregation, which deprives many of the true happiness that lies on the other side of this wall. The two families refused to let the barrier down for anyone on either side, resulting in two deaths. This conflict is one that permeates throughout humankind, a species that indisputably requires the boundaries they both desire and