mending wall

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost is a poem in which vocabulary, rhythm and other aspects of poetic technique combine in a fashion that articulates the experience and the opposing convictions that the poem describes and discusses. The ordinariness of the rural activity of “mending wall” is presented in specific terms, yet this mending has a much larger connotation. The poem works on two levels of realism and metaphor, with a balance as poised as the …

…at allowing others to get close to us, to see inside of us only to start building the walls again. “Mending Wall” has all three levels: it is about a particular thing – a wall. It is about Frost’s feeling about walls and it’s universal because it speaks to the way we all think and behave. That’s part of what makes this poem universally acceptable and enjoyable. Frost has described all of mankind.