Society has used walls as multi-purpose boundaries for years. Some people put them up around their garden to keep their vegetables safe from animals. Others build fences to keep dogs from roaming about. Several construct stunning structures around their homes for the sole purpose of beauty. And there are those who put up walls purely for the sake of tradition. Sometimes, valued traditions are not always the best or most valid reason for doing something though. In his poem "Mending Wall,"" Robert Frost illustrates the advantages of analyzing traditions, and possibly changing them for the better. .
In Frost's poem, the narrator questions the seemingly useless tradition that he and his neighbor participate in. Every spring these two men get together and fix any damages that may have come to the wall that separates their two houses. Although initiating the annual mending, the narrator firmly states "something there is that doesn't love a wall- (line 1), referring to nature and how it doesn't agree with man-made boundaries and can damage them copiously. He therefore commences the conversation with his neighbor that questions the wall's purpose. He goes on to say that the actual mending of the wall was carried out like "another kind of outdoor game- (line 21), comparing a pointless act with the wall mending. Further elaborating on this uselessness of the wall, the narrator comically remarks upon the fact that the two neighbors have nothing to wall in or out, such as horses or cows, and declares himself only an apple orchard, unable to commit any harm against his neighbor, a pine. This justifies the narrator's views of the irrelevance of the wall separating the two peers from one another. .
The neighbor on the other hand opposes the narrator's views on changing the tradition of the wall mending and adamantly makes his position on the issue clear. While the narrator good-naturedly converses with his fellow citizen, the neighbor blatantly ignores his friend's well- argued points aimed at modification and responds only with "Good fences make good neighbors- (line 27).
