The Hidden Meaning of Robert Frost's Mending Wall

It is believed that the meaning of Mending Wall is intricately woven into the seems of the poem and yet remains unseen. However, a closer look into the lines of the poem right from the beginning may hopefully help paint a picture of a greater and more in-depth meaning. The poem introduces the speaker and his neighbor. They have a stone wall dividing their properties, but it had been damaged and ravaged by the receding winter and fixing the wall that separates their properties. The stone wall is damaged, destroyed during the winter and by enthusiastic rabbit hunters1. , emotional or psychological barriers that we build to keep people out. In summary, they are mending walls meaning that they are replacing or refixing boundaries.

As the speaker and his neighbor fix the holes in the wall, the speaker suggests that perhaps the wall is unnecessary, especially considering what plants he and his neighbor has. This suggests that the work they currently carry out on the wall is futile. He essentially asks, "Why are we doing this? I can't hurt you. Perhaps it is the builder of walls that is the problem, not the people being walled out. The neighbor, stoic as ever, just repeats the saying. He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors. ’ (Last line). Furthermore, one might interpret the juxtaposition of the neighbor and the speaker, with their clearly contrasting personalities, as intentionally done by Frost. The poem starts that way too, as the neighbors unite to rebuild the wall.