I WROTE THIS FOR A FOURTH YEAR POETRY CLASS, and I have a couple of quibbles with it, mostly style. (It's a bit repetitive in places, and I'm not sure about the last couple of sentences.) But, hopefully the reader won't notice. It's basically 'as is', with prof's corrections in red, along with his helpful comments at the end. Professor Moritz is a poet and has taught at the University of Toronto for years. (He's currently Poet Laureate of Toronto, so he's the real deal.) In decoding my ancient text, I'm flattered and ashamed by his comments, a confusing mix, granted, but such is found between the lines of Robert Frost's poems.
Cheers, Jake.
In "Mending Wall", (The Norton Anthology 245), patience is seen as the chief characteristic of the poem’s speaker. In this poem, the speaker describes the contrast in sensibilities between himself and his neighbour as they work to repair the wall that lies between their two properties. The majority of the poem focuses on the inner musings of the speaker as he questions and examines the need for such a boundary and the implications of its presence. It is obvious that the speaker does not feel the need for a wall between them, but his neighbour is of the opposite opinion. Frost aptly structures his poem to reinforce the idea the wall is a boundary: the poem begins with the line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (1), which is a statement suggesting the attitude of the speaker toward the wall. The poem’s final line is a statement by the neighbour, in the form of an aphorism, summarizing his view of the wall: “ ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ “ (45). In between them lies the body of the poem.
The speaker
remains patient with his neighbour, despite their differences, and there is no
sense that the speaker requires an immediate change in attitude from his
neighbour. The speaker seems content to wait, to watch and wait. Time seems on
his side. In fact, there is a timeless quality to the poem that suggests this
conflict between the two men is part of a slow and cyclical process. For
example, the event that the speaker describes is not any particular event.
Frost carefully presents it as a ritual performed by the two every spring. It
occurs regularly “at spring-mending time” and on “a day” (11, 13) giving the
sense this is a ritual that has occurred in the past and will reoccur in the
future. It is part of a cycle. Each time the frost-damaged wall will be
repaired. Each time, as they walk, they “keep the wall between” (15) them as
they lift the boulders back in place. Each time, they reinforce the boundary
between them, as the speaker says, “once again.” (14). Near the end of the
poem, the speaker muses that he would rather his neighbour “said it for
himself” (38). He refers here to his own imaginative speculations as to the
causes of the gaps in the wall they find each spring. The speaker playfully
imagines it is “Elves” (36) who open up the wall and he would suggest this idea
to his neighbour, but he would rather he came up with it on his own. He
imagines what he “could” (29) say to his neighbour, but he doesn’t actually
tell him. Again, there is a sense of patient waiting on the part of the
speaker; he waits for his truth to be seen and understood.
I have suggested that patience is the chief characteristic of the speaker and that it is the chief characteristic found in many of the speakers of Frost’s poems. This patience can be seen to come from the speaker’s awareness of, allegiance to, and identification with the hidden forces underlying nature. Frost is described as a ‘nature poet’ and this would suggest his concern lies in examining and apprehending the natural world in all its variety. More accurately, Frost examines what he sees are the forces underlying nature and which act upon it. These forces act upon the human as well. They are mysterious, at times whimsical and personified, at other times, they are cold and impersonal, inexorable and timeless. Frost’s speakers are often depicted as being in touch with these forces, or aware of them. His speakers trust these forces, though they may not understand them. His speakers often have a ‘long view’ of things, or at least a view that is a good deal longer than the view of those they address or observe. Such a long view of processes that are ancient and evolutionary in scope, gives Frost’s speakers an air of commanding patience: for them, lives may come and go, societies rise and fall, but it is the hidden processes that will continue.
“Mending Wall” is a good example of this kind of narration. The poem’s title suggest there is to follow a description of healing or mending, but, the body of the poem suggests the title is ironic; the wall is, in fact, a point of contention between the two men; of disharmony rather than harmony. The title also suggest a paradox: the wall is both a point where the speaker and his neighbour are at odds with each other, and where mending, over the long term of repeated cycles of the spring ritual, will act to ‘mend’ the gaps in the wall, (and allow those gaps to remain.) In a sense, the wall is both a barrier and a bridge between the two men. In Frost’s long view, contradictions are seen to blur as the boundaries between them become less distinct.
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| Robert Frost |
The poem opens with the speaker immediately drawing the reader’s attention to the hidden forces that underlie nature. He says: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (1). Syntax aside, the reader is puzzled by the idea of a thing being capable of not loving a wall (and by implication, being able to love something else). This ‘thing’ remains mysterious. We witness what it does to the wall or, more specifically, what it does to the “frozen-ground swell” (12) that in turn acts to spill the boulders from the wall. The speaker later hints that it may be elves who knock the boulders down, but then he adds, “it’s not elves exactly” (37). Just what exactly this force is remains unknown and mysterious—even to the speaker—though there is a suggestion that it is benevolent. The speaker accepts and trusts these forces, whatever they may be and contrasts the gaps in the wall made by them with those made by hunters. The gaps made by the forces create a potential for community and unity with his neighbour: they were wide enough, the speaker says, so that “two can pass abreast” (4). On the other hand, the gaps made by the hunters suggest an image of destruction: the hunters left “not one stone on a stone (7). As well, the fact that the hunters tumbled down the wall to “please the yelping dogs” (9) suggests they were motivated by baser, more primitive instincts. Obviously, the speaker prefers the gaps made by the forces. In fact, he has previously repaired the gaps made by the hunters. “I have come after them and made repair” (6). The use of the word “repair” suggests damage has been done to the wall. (This contrasts with the idea of “mending” which suggests a sense of healing, and knitting-together.) Clearly, the gaps made by the forces suggest they are both physical as well as symbolic. The forces act to create gaps which the speaker would have remain and, interestingly, these forces act upon the organic—the earth—causing the “frozen-ground swell” to knock over the boulders. There is a sense of a relationship between the forces and the organic as opposed to the inorganic (the stones). Furthermore, the speaker, as organic, as human, sees himself as part of the process. He is both acted upon and is part of these forces. He says: “Spring is the mischief in me” (28), suggesting that the forces act within him, as well. The forces move mysteriously through the external world as well as through the interior world of the speaker.
The middle section of the poem is more ‘factual’ or practical in tone, suggesting the actual work the two men go through in mending the wall. The speaker muses over the particulars of the wall, saying why the work is unnecessary and, in doing so, he implies that his patience is not ‘god-like’. This process of rebuilding again and again the barrier between himself and his neighbour is a burden to him. The boulders are like “loaves” or are nearly “balls” (17) and are therefore seen by him as inappropriate for building a wall. They require a “spell” (18) to hold them in place; they are rough and unpleasant to handle. The whole process is like a game that will come “to little more” (22), and he adds “there are no cows” (31) present to make such a wall necessary. He is patient but nevertheless he feels put upon by the mending ritual.
The final section of the poem seems to deal more with language [more at communication]: what the speaker “could” (36) have said to his neighbour, what his neighbour does say to him, and the speaker’s musings about his neighbour’s “saying” (43). In this section there is another element suggested of the speaker, his compassion. He sees his neighbour as a primitive. He is like “an old-stone savage armed” (40), he says. His patience is strengthened by his vision of his neighbour as moving “in darkness” (41), unenlightened about the true nature of the world around and in him. This image again suggests the idea of ancient processes that the speaker is attuned to and the underlie the natural world (and perhaps, more specifically, the forces that underlie the natural, organic world). The speaker sees the wall as cutting the human off from both witnessing and participating in these forces. The natural balance he sees between his neighbour and himself (“He was all pine and I am an apple orchard” 24) is disturbed by the unnecessary boundary of the wall. Frost continues this image by suggesting that boundaries are not just the physical ones. They are also the boundaries we establish in our minds by blindly accepting tradition, our “father’s sayings” (43). These artificial divisions fence us off from participating in the processes that are common to all organic life.
A final point on the ‘long-view’ held by Frost’s speaker: there is an historical view that the speaker maintains, that allows him to maintain his patience and confidence in these processes. The sense of the ancient and primitive is illustrated by the image of his neighbour as an “old stone savage” and of the hunters who act instinctually. Here there is an image of destruction and conquest suggesting the lowest order of human awareness: the level of physical survival. At this level, there are barriers of solid stone preventing any human awareness of, or participation in, the hidden forces of nature. A progression upward is suggested by the magical spell that both men cast to hold the boulders in place. It is a movement from the purely physical level of self-preservation, but such magic remains as a weapon to be used against the forces of nature. With the image of the “elves” however, there is a suggestion of a force existing outside the sphere of the human that, instead, acts upon humanity and nature alike. The speaker refines this idea further by saying it is “not quite” like elves, rather, it is “Something” else.
The poem has images that move from the most primitive—the stone age—[examples?] to what might be called the transcendental-age, with barriers between the hidden forces and the human becoming less distinct, but the speaker notes the final and perhaps insurmountable barrier that exists in the mind of the neighbour. It is a barrier created by language and by tradition—weapons that are greater than either stone or magic. Where hope lies is in the fact that the speaker sees his neighbour has chosen to erect this final barrier. He says his neighbour “will not” (44) go behind it. The hope is that someday he may.
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Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Mending Wall”. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ed. Richard Ellman and Robert O’Clair. NY: Norton, 1988. 481. Print.
Professor Moritz's comments:
Donald McDonnell
The Patient Eye: The Speaker in Frost’s “Mending Wall”
A
Don, This is an excellent paper in thought and in presentation; especially, it detailed an ever deepening gaze into the particulars of the poem exemplifies, in interpretation, the same patience you so well analyze in Frost’s speaker.
Among many insights I profited by, let me mention a few. It is a valuable perception that the poem lies between the two contrasting aphorisms of the two men. P. 1 para. 3 contains excellent attention to detailing in discovering the ritual spring rebuilding and the generality of “a day’. P.1 para. 2 makes a fine and true distinction to show Frost concerned with the “forces underlying nature” and equally fine is the definition of Frost’s “long view” at the end of this paragraph. The next paragraph has an excellent insight in presenting the wall as occasion of meeting between the two men, as both boundary and bridge. P. 3 para. 1 is excellent in its probing of the poem’s first line, especially in its bringing out the strangeness of “love’ in the context.
Let me suggest a dimension of the poem relevant to your exploration. In a sense, the speaker’s neighbour also represents and objectifies a dimension of the speaker himself. He thinks of himself as against walls, and in tune with a universal truth and process of unification, of transcendence of boundaries, yet he continues to silently agree in rebuilding the wall, even though he sees what he sees. This unifying truth is, for him, basic and original, and yet he sees his neighbour as an ancient savage: an ignorant and unevolved type, perhaps, but by the same token one who is also close to basic and original forces. Like the two men, the speaker is compounded of, and divided over, wall-making and the yearing to level walls. In the speaker himself, then, the two impulses are held in suspense, not merely between the two men, and it remains a question whether the hatred of walls is the more basic impulse and thus the direction of evolution, or whether the basic truth is a permanent balance of the two forces.
An excellent, suggestive, readable paper. Let me mention a few errors to guard against:
[Prof. M cites some spelling errors: “revealled”, “revellation”, “their's alligence” and grammar error: “continue on” (should be just “continue”)
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