A2 LL - Mending Wall - the past

Mending Wall is another poem by Robert Frost that will enable you to write about the past.

In this poem Frost recalls an annual ritual of mending a wall that divides two farms. The work is done every year. The work is repeated. It even has its own name ‘spring mending time’ to show this job has been done many times before.

But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.

 It is written in the first person and we feel it is strongly autobiographical. As in all of Frost’s poems the starting point is personal experience.

Notice the first person plural pronoun ‘we’ that suggests team work – people working together, agreement.

Notice also the strong rhythmic quality to the poem – created by the iambic pentameters. This rhythm helps create a sense of movement and flow in the poem that perhaps gives the impression of walking.

The phrase ‘once again’ picks up the repetitive nature of the work they are doing. It feels as if this work is ongoing and will never be completed. Is there a sense of frustration in the tone of the poem at this point?

Most of the poem is written in the present tense. This gives us a direct experience of the work that is presented to us as if the work was being done as we read.

We realise as we read that Frost disapproves of this job. He thinks it is meaningless and can serve no purpose. One way he devalues this work is to refer to his neighbour as

I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

For Frost the neighbour is trapped in the past. A past where there was no rules, laws, even civilisation. He refers to him as primitive, lacking in trust, full of suspition and doubt about people. It reminds us of the wild west of the previous century. It reminds us of cowboys and Indians.

Note the alliterative ‘stone savage’ and the post modifying adjective ’armed’ emphasises the idea of threat, defence and potential violence that characterised rural life in America a century earlier.

Notice also the adjective 'darkness'. This is deeply symbolic refer to darkness as ignorance, evil, primitive.

Frost represents a modern America. He is idealistic and optimistic about human nature. He thinks America and its citizens no longer require the outdated behaviour of the past where the West - depicted in so many western films like ‘High Noon’ was presented as lawless and primitive.

His neighbour’s father represents this generation – now dead. But his son – Frost’s neighbour holds on to the rules of the past out of fear.

He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

I hope you find these few thoughts helpful.