AllieK

The Mending Wall By Robert Frost
[|Voicethread] [|Script]

**Title**- Fixing, healing, barrier, fence, brick, divided __diction__: simple descriptive words __imagery__: boulders, sun, gaps, stones, rabbit hiding, yelping dogs, neighbor beyond the hill, fingers rough, pine and apple orchard, stone grasped firmly by the top, darkness, shade of trees __syntax__: simple sentence structure, the order is creative and in the voice of the speaker __form__: free verse, no rhyme, resembles loose iambic pentameter __point-of-view__: first person from the speakers point of view __sound devices__: quotes of the speaker and his neighbor, no other sound “devices” __allusions__: Napoleon Guy, who was the farming neighbor of Frost- said “Good fences make good neighbors” __symbolism__: Hunters and dogs- tearing down nature; the wall- conflict between change and tradition __figurative language__: simile- “like an old-stone savage armed” (41)
 * Paraphrase**- The poem is about a wall that is designed to separate a man and his neighbor. Each spring, the wall is knocked down and the neighbors go out to rebuild it. The speaker doesn’t believe in walls for the sake of walls and doesn’t see a reason to keep the two properties divided if there are no cows. The neighbor resorts to an old saying: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
 * Connotations**-
 * Attitude**- The speaker is against keeping the wall and does not like the boundary it sets up between his neighbor and himself. He doesn’t understand building a wall when he doesn’t know what is being walled in or kept out. The neighbor believes strongly in the wall and feels it necessary to keep. The author wrote the poem in the voice of the speaker, and therefore shares the same view.
 * Shifts**- The neighbor’s philosophy interjects twice throughout the poem, therefore creating a shift in point of view and attitude. There is also a shift into the springtime when the mending of the wall begins.
 * Theme**- The wall is a major divide between the two neighbors and properties. Not only does it divide the land, but it creates a boundary between the two men. There is a mental struggle between two neighbors who co-operate on a project, but hold different ideas on the wall itself.
 * Title**- ‘Mending Wall’ describes the task the two neighbors complete each spring after the wall has been damaged.