Miscellany

A Good Neighbor (CA #1) L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N L.N 


In the poem, “Mending Wall”, why did Robert Frost choose to repeat the lines “Good fences make good neighbors?” At the beginning of the poem, he says that “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. That sends the frozen-ground-well under it.” I interpreted it as a type of natural disaster that kept breaking down this wall but later on when they repeat it for the second time I figured maybe that this wall shouldn’t be there in the first place because it keeps two different people apart. I say two different people because in the poem he says “He is all pine, and I am apple orchard.” Then he says “My apple trees will never get across. And the cones under his pines, I tell him.” They will never be able to share anything and the other is still fine with that. The other still questioning “Why do good fences make good neighbors?” while the other is still mending the fence. One will argue that they should keep a wall between us everywhere because the wall would make good neighbors. Perhaps he feels that it wouldn’t be great to get so close because who knows what they might do to each other. At the end of the poem he says “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 neighbors.” He never really gives a clear explanation why good fences make good neighbors and perhaps this is because he feels that he cannot turn back on what he has been taught and especially what his parents taught him. If that’s the case, then why does the wall keep breaking?