In Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, the theme that humans create arbitrary separations between themselves to find comfort in safety is shown through his use of a playful to dark diction and symbolism of the wall. Throughout the poem, a playful diction revolving around the barrier gradually transitions into a dark diction of why these barriers exist. First, a playful diction is presented as the narrator thinks of the barriers as “...just another kind of outdoor game” (Frost 21). Frost uses playful diction such as “game” to present that the persona of the poem thinks the wall is just some joke. In his mind, a wall that separates two people, like his neighbor and himself, is irrelevant and pointless; he doesn’t understand the reason for such
