Symbolism In Robert Frost's The Mending Wall

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. Frost lived in California until the death of his farther where he moved to New England, the country he identified as his home. In 1914 Frost wrote the poem “The Mending Wall,” which was a long stanza of blank verse. The poem of “The Mending Wall,” described two neighbors who had a controversy about the wall dividing their properties. The narrator wanted to remove the wall and his neighbor wanted to keep the wall between them, both having the goal to strengthen their relationship as neighbors. The symbolism of the “mending wall” was the highlighting factor of the entire story. The wall separated the neighbors physically but brought them closer together mentally. The symbolism …show more content…
A wall is something that provides boundaries and security between two people, and the mending wall depicts the common separation of two neighbor’s properties. However, the narrator characterizes the wall as an emotional barrier between him and his neighbor’s relationship and something that is unnecessary. In line 23 the speaker says, “There where it is we do not need the wall,” which shows his strong opposition of the wall separating the two. While the neighbor feels the wall to be a necessary physical barrier that mends the relationship between the two neighbors by providing space, which is shown through his continuous phrase of, “Good fences make good neighbors” (lines 27 and 45). The mending wall represents the “wall of separation” between the two individuals and their relationship. The different viewpoints of the two neighbors over the wall symbolizes the battle between tradition and modernism. The neighbor represents tradition by wanting to keep the wall and let it serve its purpose to separate the two properties for their privacy and isolation. The narrator, on the other hand, represents modernism by wanting the wall to come down for freedom between the two individuals. Although, both individuals have their own viewpoints of the wall’s presence, their relationship as neighbors was always the main focus of their reasons for the wall’s up keeping or