When it comes to poetry, it is not often that it is studied without thinking about the famous poet Robert Frost. Robert Frost was a troubled man with a complex life journey who followed an unexpected path to success. His life was reflected in his poetry, always consistent with his roots and his rural way of life. “If popularity could be taken as the measure of a poet's eminence, Frost would certainly be one of the most eminent poets in the English language.” Robert Frost's opinion on society in his poem "Mending Wall" is contradictory but we can see that he takes into account both his opinion but also that of his neighbor. Either society seeks separation or parts of it allow the possibility of change. Hesitation could be the result of fear, and Frost explores this possibility throughout “Mending Wall.” Throughout the poem, Frost's use of literary devices such as metaphors, symbolism, and imagery allows us to see that the narrator is struggling with his own beliefs and accepting those of his neighbor. But also his neighbor's stubbornness and ignorance of the facts surrounding him. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Frost begins his poem “Mending Wall” with a line that has more meaning than the written words. “There’s something that doesn’t like a wall” which is then repeated a second time. This is not the only time Frost does this throughout the poem. He also repeats “Good fences make good neighbors,” then ends the poem with this line. The repetition of these two lines was a calculated move by Frost. Why Frost chose to do this is important. This action plan made it possible to anchor these lines in the public mind. Frost allowed people to imagine that he was trying to remain impartial about his relationship to the way society should function. In truth, he was unsure whether he thought society should function as a community or as separate units within a community. In reality, Frost believed that we should coexist together coherently. “The voice of the poem, belonging to a narrator who has a character, is open and relaxed, but interior and dreamy; it welcomes the reader, while leading him into an enigma which becomes essential to the meaning of the poem.” This conundrum becomes a conundrum for the reader, making us wonder if the wall is really a necessity in our lives and in our society. The narrator considers this struggle between himself and whether or not his own opinions match those of his neighbor. Even though the lines above describe both opinions in the argument of whether or not we should be separated from our neighbor or coexist peacefully and whether or not Frost justified these opinions, there were other parts of " Mending Wall” which overshadowed Frost’s feelings on the subject. He made it an almost comical subject when he personified trees and their ability to move. “Where it is, we don't need the wall: it's all pine and I'm an apple orchard. My apple trees will never cross over and eat the apples. under his pines, I tell him.” Here we can see the imagery that Frost uses alongside personification and, frankly, symbolism as well. The way Frost used imagery, although simplistic, allowed us to imagine an apple tree teetering toward the pine tree and munching on its pine cones without permission. This is how absolutely absurd the narrator finds this wall he is building. The wall is not something necessary for their survival asas farmers, but he is nevertheless a symbol of his neighbor's stubbornness. “Frost's nature poems make for delightful reading because of their skillful handling of poetic devices like imagery and personification. Personification is generally used to add vitality to descriptions of nature. The Romantic's personifications take the form of brief metaphors, while Frost's are almost always extended analogies. Their crops, pine and apple trees, are far enough apart that there is no possible way for either to cross the others' lands, unless they grow legs and do not wonder. Frost implies that his neighbor's ignorance on the matter is what compels them to perform this menial chore. It could also be that his neighbor is so stuck in his ways that, even considering this logical point about his crops, it doesn't stop him from building the wall. The same can be said about the narrator, even though he understands the absurdity that comes with building the wall, he doesn't stop either. The narrator's uncertainty is based on his own fear of the unknown, that it is in fact possible that "good fences make good neighbors." After a while, Frost's "Mending Wall" takes on a more serious tone. He goes from a lighthearted man joking about walking and stealing trees to a more serious man assessing the man next to him. The narrator can sense the importance of the task at hand just by analyzing the man before him. “I see him there, bringing a stone firmly grasped from above In each hand, like an armed old stone savage. It moves in the dark as it seems to me, Not just from the woods and from the shadows of the trees. It is this passage that changes the tone of the poem. Frost's use of imagery here allows us to see the seriousness of this old man doing back-breaking work. This brings a change in the narrator's thinking. "Eventually, the narrator's speculations about what might be wrong with a wall turn into a description of the difficulty of repairing walls and a questioning of why he and his neighbor met to accomplish this task in the first place place. His range of tones, in doing so, ranges from serious to whimsical to distracted to cajoling. As is usual in Frost, this movement is accentuated by a tension between spoken English and formal meter. The change in tone changes the meaning of this poem. We can evaluate how the narrator views how the construction of the wall affects his life. He considers it just a chore, but when he looks at his neighbor, he thinks about the meaning the wall has for him. Here is this old man doing backbreaking work because he believes in the wall and the meaning behind the wall. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized paper now from our expert writers. Get a Custom Essay The wall described in the “Mending Wall” section is a symbol among the characters in the poem but also among the readers of the poem. “Many critics of Robert Frost's Mending Wall” have seen the poem as a symbolic statement about the barriers that men create between themselves. For them, the wall is a visual icon of these barriers.” The wall allows them to alleviate their fear of what is happening beyond their home. The wall is their security from what lies beyond the world and security from the fear they have of the unknown. The wall is Frost's way of expressing how people want to stay separate from their neighbor. Every year, they come together to build this symbol that is a wall. Frost knew that simple objects like walls.