Poetry Essay - Robert Frost "Mending Wall".
The poem, Mending Wall, by Robert Frost is a very confusing piece of writing. In the poem there are many contradictions, examples of irony and unanswered questions. A reader may be able to find many interpretations to the poem. The poem is basically about walls and how they need to be mended after natural and unnatural wear. However there is more to this poem than its title suggests.
There are two main themes to this poem. The first on about building barriers and how they continuously fall, and the second is about persistence. I believe the poet is trying to express that there are two types of people: Wall builders and wall destroyers. Though the wall is continuously being repaired the poet implies that there is always something that wears the wall down (something there is that doesn't love a wall). Frost might be referring to real life situations and issues with people here. Frost also shows persistence in two areas. The first is the continuous repairing of the wall and the second is the speaker's persistence to convince his neighbour to look forward and beyond his motive of "good walls make good neighbours". The purpose of this poem is quite unclear, but it seems that Frost maybe trying to explain that there are sometimes barriers in life that are put up for no reason and that there are people who re-strengthen them for no reason except for the sake of it. Frost also writes about persistence and maybe how some people are just like that. As for the poet's motif on writing the poem, there might have been a time when Frost had come across a situation similar to the on in the poem or that he had thought about such a situation and never quite solved it, so he made a hard copy to raise his enquiry.
Though the poem seems free verse it is actually set out quite well in the way it hits the reader. The poem is naturally spoken in the way that one would do normally.