Brown Nakia Brown English 102 D 21 February 2012 Wall of Segregation Walls have been implemented in everyday life

as far back as Mesopotamia. The gigantic wall that surrounded city-states were serving a purpose, which was to protect their inhabitants from opposing city-states. Farms have always had fences around the perimeter of the owner s property because the owner would not want to lose his or her livestock. However, in the poem the Mending Wall, the wall does not seem to have been

built for any reason, or to fulfill any general purpose. In Robert Frost s poem, the Mending Wall, Frost uses the stonewall as a metaphor for segregation. Walls are put up in nature to protect one s property, and to keep one s personal property from straying out of their boundaries. In Mending Wall , the two narrators make an annual visit to the wall that separates their land. The intention of the neighbors gathering is to make repairs to the wall that had happened the previous year. Every year the wall seems to get ruined by no fault of the neighbors. Something in that land does not agree with the building and placement of a wall in that position. In the opening line of Mending Wall, the narrator states something there is that doesn t love a wall (line 1), that something is nature. The wall is a restriction that prevents nature from carrying out its normal cycle of life. Mother Nature was carrying out her daily activities long before man decided to impose limits on her domain. The wall is dividing nature in half, isolating one half from the other. Mother Nature attacks the wall in various ways so she may claim back the land she once had. In the winter, frost heaves form

Brown under the wall and cause stones to topple down from on top of one another (2). Hunters

chase down rabbits for food, and the rabbits hide in the safety of their holes under the wall, but the hunters take down the wall and dig up the hole just so they can appease their dogs (5-9). The narrator never finds anything or anyone dismantling his wall. However, every time he checks the wall in the spring, the gaps are always there. The neighbor of the narrator is perceived at being the driving force behind the restoration of the wall. The narrator questions his neighbor on why he thinks there should be a wall, only to get the response, Good fences make good neighbors (27). The neighbor just wants to have his property separated from the narrator s. The neighbor takes pleasure in the thought of having the boundaries of his property known. However, the neighbors enforcing of the separation by building the wall seems to have a darker meaning. The way the narrator describes his neighbor as an old-stone savage armed (40) when the neighbor is repairing the wall leads one to think there is more motivation to building the wall than its practical value. Also, the way the neighbor moves in darkness . . . /not of woods only and the shade of trees (41-42) makes the neighbor seem more suspicious. The presence of the darkness and shade seems to be masking the true intentions of the neighbor. A deeper sense of segregation is instilled in the reader leading one to question what exactly caused the neighbor to want to have a wall. The neighbor s earlier response of good fences make good neighbors (27) comes back to the mind of the reader and makes one wonder what is the neighbor trying to keep out? The neighbor seems paranoid, almost like he is afraid of something that will come into his property. Most people would argue that a respectful neighbor generally makes the best neighbor. The neighbor, however, believes that a fence is the best neighbor, which can be interpreted to mean that the neighbor likes being alone

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and segregated from the rest of society. It is though, never at the neighbors reminding, that the narrator and neighbor take the annual trip to fix the wall. On first reading of Mending Wall, the reader is generally asking the same question as the narrator, why does the neighbor want to build the wall? There is no need to build a wall. Walls are made to keep things in, or keep things out, but there is neither reason for this wall. The narrator even says to his neighbor that his land is all pine and I am apple orchard. / My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines (2325). The narrator is saying that there are only pine tress on his neighbors land, and only apple trees on his land, and that his apples will never go across to the neighbors land and eat his pinecones. It makes sense to fence in livestock, but not trees. The narrator is mocking the neighbor when he says what would want the wall down, and he answers to his own question by responding elves (35). By referencing a fantastical species the narrator is poking fun at the neighbor by saying his land is not in any apparent danger because elves would never invade his land. While it appears that the narrator does not want the wall, he was actually the one who initiated the mending of the wall. The narrator crosses the hill to his neighbors house to remind him its spring mending time (12-13). It was at the narrators initiative, not the neighbors, to meet and fix the broken wall. If the narrator did not want the wall in place, then why would he insist on building the wall? It appears that author also might have some hidden drive for segregation. The beginning of Mending Wall starts out with a light tone. The narrator is just describing how the wall came to be ruined each spring. As the play progresses the tone starts to become more playful. The narrator is comparing balancing the rocks on top of each other to a game. The narrator further lightens the mood when he makes a joke about

Brown the wall being unnecessary because the apples from his apple trees will not eat the pinecones from the neighbors pine tree. The narrator even goes as far as to mock his neighbor when he asks him if he s building a wall to keep the elves out. The mood starts

to become darker after the narrator mocks the neighbor. The line after the narrator mocks the neighbor; the neighbor is pictured to be standing in the shade, enveloped in darkness with two rocks grasped like basketballs, an old-stone savage (40). The neighbor gets the last word in when he says, Good fences make good neighbors (45). This last sentence seems to justify everything for the neighbor. The end of the poem stops on a ominous note. It leaves the reader wondering why the neighbor enjoys beings segregated so much.